Mardi Link

Mardi Link at Brilliant Books Mardi is the author of two true crime books based in northern Michigan.

Isadore's Secret, released September 2009 recounts the mysterious disappearance and murder of a Leelanau County nun in 1907. It entered the Great Lakes Booksellers Bestseller lists on the week it came out and, to date, is still there.

The first, When Evil Came to Good Hart, meticulously details the 40-year investigation of the Robison murders in Good Hart and spent three months on the Heartland Bestseller List.

Mardi is a former police reporter, a former editor of both Small Press and ForeWord Magazines, a co-founder of Michigan Writers, and recipient of the 2007 Goddess Award from Antioch Writers Workshop. She lives in Traverse City.

Please email us if you'd like personalized copies of Mardi's work dedicated to you or someone special to you.

 

Isadore's Secret: Sin, Murder, and Confession in a Northern Michigan Town (Paperback)

By Mardi Link
$22.95
ISBN-13: 9780472050796
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: University of Michigan Press/Regional, 9/2009
Other Editions of this Title

Signed by Mardi Link

Isadore’s Secret is a gripping account of the mysterious disappearance of a young nun in 1907 from Isadore, just outside Sutton’s Bay, and the national controversy that followed when she turned up dead and buried in the basement of the rural church.

A former police reporter, author Mardi Link’s first book, When Evil Came to Good Hart, was an instant hit and spent 4 months on the Indie Heartland Bestseller list.

From the prologue: “Swinging planks of lantern light shine through the musty air and onto the dirt floor of the church basement. The oddly glowing rectangles syncopate over the damp ground and illuminate even the darkest, stooped-down corners of the space beyond. The only sound is the ragged breathing of two men, a young parish priest and a much older laborer. Aboveground these men belong completely to this place, in both body and soul. A glimpse of their faces anywhere in the sanctuary, the rectory, the school, the barn, or the gardens would be a welcome sight. But here below, these men of Isadore are interlopers. Only trespassers would sneak silently into the church's sloped underbelly without witness to carry out such a sinful and secret errand as this one. Despite their tools, and their lantern, and their resolve, neither is equipped for the task at hand or for what is to come.”

"A missing nun, ecclesiastical detectives, a small-town secret, and conspiracies in abundance; Isadore's Secret packs all the punch of a Dan Brown thriller, along with the disturbing revelation that it's all true. This is true-crime reporting at its best." _---Loren D. Estleman, author of The Left-Handed Dollar "An astonishing story told with beautiful, lyrical prose that never overshadows the facts. Mardi Link's achievement with Isadore's Secret is nothing short of stellar." _—Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author of Starvation Heights "In Isadore's Secret, Mardi Link shines a journalist's lamp on this dark, quiet corner of Michigan's history, assuring that the tragic story of Sister Janina is not forgotten. Link's telling is fascinating and thorough, making a story you will not soon forget."_—Steve Lehto, author of Death's DoorMardi Link, a former crime reporter, was named Antioch's Betty Crumrine Scholar for Creative Nonfiction in 2007. Her first book, When Evil Came to Good Hart, also published by the University of Michigan Press, spent four months on the Heartland Indie Bestseller List.

When Evil Came to Good Hart (Paperback)

By Mardi Link
$22.95
ISBN-13: 9780472033157
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: University of Michigan Press/Regional, 7/2008
Other Editions of this Title

Signed by Mardi Link

"The murder mystery that has confounded and fascinated people for over forty years has been given a whole new life. "When Evil Came to Good Hart" is a well-researched and well-written piece of nonfiction that holds the reader in its spell, just as it has the many writers, reporters, and law officers who have puzzled over it. My highest praise for Mardi Link's book is to say that it reads like a good novel, a real page-turner." --Judith Guest, author of "Ordinary People" and "The Tarnished Eye" In this page-turning true-life whodunit, author Mardi Link details all the evidence to date. She crafts her book around police and court documents and historical and present-day statements and interviews, in addition to exploring the impact of the case on the community of Good Hart and the stigma that surrounds the popular summer getaway. Adding to both the sense of tragic history and the suspense, Link laces her tale with fascinating bits of local and Indian lore, while dozens of colorful characters enter and leave the story, spicing the narrative. During the years of investigation of the murders, officials considered hundreds of tips and leads as well as dozens of sources, among them former secretaries who worked for murder victim Dick Robison; Robison's business associates; John Norman Collins, perpetrator of the "Co-Ed Murders" that took place in Washtenaw County between 1967 and 1969; and an inmate in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, who said he knew who killed the Robison family. Despite the exhaustive investigative efforts of numerous individuals, decades later the case lies tantalizingly out of reach. It is still an unsolved cold case, yielding, in Link's words, fortyyears worth of "dead-end leads, anonymous tips, a few hard facts, and countless cockamamie theories."