Less is more here—just a little bit slower.
A surly farmer meets a grisly end in a corn maze.
Abby McCree (Death by Committee, 2019) still hasn’t figured out what she wants to do with her life after her marriage goes bust, but while she’s waiting, Connie Pohler, assistant to the mayor of Snowberry Creek, has plenty of ideas about how Abby should be spending her time. First, Connie suckered 30-something Abby into heading up Mayor McKay’s Committee on Senior Affairs. Now she’s got Abby involved in planning the town’s annual Halloween Festival. Abby doesn’t mind stringing streamers or thinking up fundraisers, but she hates the idea of driving out to Ronald Minter’s ramshackle place to pick up a load of pumpkins for the festival. Minter is well known at City Hall for complaining about everything from the route of the homecoming parade to the speed limit on the road past his farm. When she gets to his place, Minter’s uncharacteristically quiet, mainly because someone’s stabbed him in the back with an Army knife. Chief of police Gage Logan suspects Kevin Montgomery, a homeless retired Army sergeant, but, unable to track down the vagabond vet, he throws Abby’s tenant, Tripp Blackston, in the pokey for refusing to disclose Montgomery’s whereabouts. Unlike nearly every other cozy heroine determined to clear the name of someone she cares about, Abby doesn’t quiz potential suspects or scout out the crime scene; she simply waits patiently with her ear to the ground and lets the typical village buzz reveal the secret to her.
Less is more here—just a little bit slower.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1954-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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