A riveting, fast-paced mystery full of wartime secrets, romance, and psychological trauma.
A wartime betrayal provides the solution to a 1947 murder.
Iris Sparks—who’s coping with the death of her lover, Archie, by drinking all the wine he left behind—has moved to a small canal boat and is back to working full-time at The Right Sort, a matrimonial bureau she owns with her best friend, war widow Gwen Bainbridge. Gwen’s just begun a relationship with Salvatore Danielli, who works at the BBC and has known Iris since their days at Cambridge. Sally and Gwen are both deeply concerned about Iris. The Right Sort’s newest customer is Laurence Haight, Sally’s BBC colleague, who knew Iris during the war; both of them, along with Sally, had to sign the Official Secrets Act forbidding them to talk about their wartime activities. As a radio man, Laurence wants to meet someone with a melliferous voice. When Frenchwoman Jeanne-Marie Duplessis, who needs to be married by next Sunday, says she’ll take anyone, the partners reluctantly agree to look for a match for her. Then, during a visit to the BBC that Sally arranged for Iris, Gwen, her son, and a friend to watch rehearsals for a new puppet show, a few sentences spoken by the puppeteer in German strike a chord with Laurence, causing him to pull Iris aside and ask her to meet him later to discuss it. Turns out he recognizes the voice of the puppeteer as that of a German who murdered one of the agents he monitored during the war. When Sally and his guests make a stop at a theater owned by the BBC, they find Jeanne-Marie Duplessis’ dead body near a collection of props. The man in charge of the case, DS Mike Kinsey, Iris’ former fiance, suspects Sally. In order to solve the murder and exonerate Sally, Iris must return to her wartime days and uncover clandestine information.
A riveting, fast-paced mystery full of wartime secrets, romance, and psychological trauma.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781448312375
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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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