A pressure-packed cozy whose intrepid sleuth really feels the heat.
An Ohio coffee-shop owner comes up against a malicious campaign blaming her for all sorts of misdeeds.
Krissy Hancock is part owner of Death by Coffee, a charming combination of bookstore and coffee shop. Her father, James, is a popular author whose new novel is sure to be a hit, but when customer Hamish Lauder realizes it's the beginning of a new series, he complains that he’s still waiting for James to finish the last one. "It's insulting to the reader," Hamish says. "Making us wait. What gives him the right to decide to work on something else when there's a series he has yet to finish." (Paging George R.R. Martin!) Krissy’s own troubles start when a woman finds a cockroach in her coffee and there turn out to be more in the bathroom. Of course the story spreads all over Pine Hills, and while most of Krissy's customers defend her, others take joy in her problem, and her new neighbor seems to hate her. Then she starts getting strange texts and a picture showing her boyfriend, police officer Paul Dalton, looking cozy with his ex, Shannon. Other people get nasty letters supposedly written by Krissy, and she’s called into the police station for allegedly throwing a brick through a restaurant window. An online news source accuses her of even worse behavior. All this is bad, but when Hamish Lauder is killed, Krissy realizes that if she doesn’t solve the crime, she may end up in prison. She’s been involved with murder cases before, but she’s never felt so threatened or helpless. Still, she plows ahead with research and questions she hopes will find the real culprit.
A pressure-packed cozy whose intrepid sleuth really feels the heat.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3665-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A sly reminder that “movies, like politics, are unreality. That’s the point of them.”
A posthumous novel Crichton (1942–2008) wrote in 1973 under the pseudonym John Lange, in between The Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery, but left unpublished till now.
As Harvey Jason knows all too well, the life of a movie publicist is no fun. Now that he’s spent three weeks in Tucson, Arizona, for the shooting of the western Bloodrock, Harvey’s come to know every watering hole in town and every scandal among the cast and crew. Except, that is, for the scandal that threatens to break out when Arthur McDougall, the screenwriter who’s come along for possible rewrites, is found dead in his hotel bathtub. The studio head back in Hollywood preemptively dispatches insurance investigator Harlow Perkins—“a regular Sherlock Holmes”—before any of the insurance companies backing the production can hire him themselves. In short order, the dislikable Perkins lines up interviews with leading actors Clete Williams and Brenda Conrad, promiscuous second lead Sally Oldman, producer Charles Mann, director Tom Franklin, and the rest of the crew. Whoever he talks to, he’s accompanied by Harvey, shadowing him under the orders of his boss, publicity chief Sam Appelbaum, who’s far from convinced that news of the incident will be bad for business. The characters are no more memorable than Colonel Mustard or Miss Scarlet, but Crichton, as in the SF novels that would make him famous, sweats every detail of the background, and aspiring filmmakers will learn as much about the mechanics of moviemaking as they could from most film textbooks. If you think the big reveal falls flat, just keep on reading to the end.
A sly reminder that “movies, like politics, are unreality. That’s the point of them.”Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798212514309
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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