Hard as a Headstone: A Maine Mystery

The dead don't lie. The living do.

Former Army CID investigator Ardmore Theberge just wanted to complete his assignment: a routine land survey. But when he discovers a young woman murdered in a historic Maine graveyard--her skull crushed by blunt-force trauma--routine goes out the window.

The victim, Janey Nightingale, was part of an activist group fighting to stop a bottled water company from relocating the cemetery. The authorities seem in no hurry to solve the case. But when Ardmore's friend Millicent Feathernight implores him to look into what appears to be a crime against a fellow Native American woman, he can't say no.

In the unorganized town of Platen, everyone has secrets and everyone has an agenda. When the victim's identity proves to be as false as the town's promises of cooperation, Ardmore realizes he's stumbled into something far more dangerous than a simple murder.

Especially when he becomes the prime suspect.

Now Ardmore must use every skill from his mysterious military past to clear his name and expose a killer--before he becomes the graveyard's next permanent resident.

Author: Richard J. Cass
Publisher: Islandport Press
Published: 09/01/2026
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781934031292


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 07/15/2026

About the Author
Richard Cass is the author of the seven-book Elder Darrow jazz mystery series. The first book in the series won the 2018 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. The fifth, Sweetie Bogan's Sorrow, won the Nancy Pearl Librarian's Prize for Genre Fiction. His Maine-based Ardmore Therberge thriller series launched with The Last Altruist, and he has also published a short story collection, Gleam of Bone.

Cass holds a graduate degree in writing from the University of New Hampshire, where he studied with Thomas Williams, Jr. and Joseph Monninger. His short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Playboy, Gray's Sporting Journal, ZZYZVA, Tough, Shotgun Honey and Best Short Stores of the American West. He is a regular contributor to the Maine Crime Writers blog. He is a lecturer at OLLI, and he lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine with his wife Anne.