A whodunit that delivers an excellent gallery of characters and captivating historical tidbits.
In this third installment of a crime novel series, dioramas featuring miniature homicide scenes—which serve as teaching tools for cops—may be inspiring real murders.
Adam and Eve Castle—he’s an architect and she’s a psychologist—run Castle Training in Denver. He builds dioramas that resemble cutaway dollhouses where some little mannequins have met with bad ends. She writes the scripts: Were these really cases of murder or just unfortunate accidents? The cops have to put the visual clues together. But to everyone’s growing horror, genuine murders are occurring that seem to be inspired by these settings, including a man bludgeoned in his high-rise hot tub just as the Castles portrayed it in miniature. At the same time, Lily Sparks—an art conservator, former attorney, and the hero of this series—is trying to stabilize a Thomas Cole painting of a manor. Lily discovers, with the aid of a scruffy genius named Raf Feldman, that the work is not a genuine Cole after all. And Lily and her lover, Paul Reilly, are desultorily house hunting. (Is there a theme here?) At any rate, as in Kane’s other volumes, Lily, her insights doubted if not ridiculed, tries to expose the murderer. But this places her in danger of being killed herself. The author knows how to keep things moving swiftly, and readers get a good picture of hip society in Denver. And she always gives readers a little something extra. The Castle Training bit, for example, is based on real history. Frances Glessner Lee (1878-1962) devoted her life to making miniature dioramas and for exactly the forensic purposes readers see in the story. She became known as the “mother of forensic science.” As for the Cole, the audience learns why the depiction of houses would be anathema to the founder of the Hudson River School. That said, readers will occasionally find it hard to follow the subtleties of Lily’s deductive breakthroughs. Sometimes, the audience will just have to take it on faith that she is on the right track.
A whodunit that delivers an excellent gallery of characters and captivating historical tidbits.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: COLD HARD PRESS
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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