A stunning, pistol-packing hero who deserves a more believable mystery.
Murder, robbery, and a long-legged employee shake up a Florida bank’s loan division.
In Madding’s murder mystery, loan processor Colleen Smithwick packs a pistol, wears stilettos, drives a Maserati, and finds married life boring. Alex, her devoted husband of 15 years, seems glued to his recliner. So when Colleen and police detective Gary Black meet-cute when he investigates the murder of one of the bank’s loan officers, she soon sends the handsome, blond, divorced man racy selfies, including one of her dragon-tattooed upper thigh (plus just a hint of a black thong). The stabbing death of loan officer Richard Shiver in the bank’s parking lot hardly bothers Colleen, who tells Gary that she’s on a long list of murder suspects, which includes anyone who ever had to deal with the victim. Within days of the killing, a robbery takes place at the bank, and then another employee is found dead. But work on approving loans basically goes on uninterrupted, and Colleen balances her pull to Gary with an attraction to a female co-worker. Realism doesn’t play a part in a plot that has loan operations go on as if it were business as usual even when the bank suffers a robbery and multiple employee murders within a matter of days. Details and word choices deserve more attention. For example, Colleen has “salt and pepper streaked brown hair” (brown?), and it’s not a quip when someone asks “ ‘What’s the status of my loan package?’ he quipped.” A pet dachshund is introduced early in the book, but later a Chihuahua confusingly appears. Gary is not a particularly woke character; he orders a drink for himself and one for Colleen by saying, “And the lady will have the same.” But this lady, who tells Gary she fantasizes about spankings, is a vamp. And when she’s on the page, it’s eye-popping for readers.
A stunning, pistol-packing hero who deserves a more believable mystery.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-86037-4
Page Count: 85
Publisher: Charm House Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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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