While not gripping, this debut shows enough promise to encourage readers to follow along if it turns into a series.
Maddie Arnette stops in the middle of running a marathon to help a woman who has fallen and is shocked when she whispers "My husband is trying to kill me."
Maddie is a television reporter for a small North Carolina television station. After the death of her husband, she traded her crime beat for feature reporting, hoping it would cause less stress and give her more time for her 10-year-old twins. But her curiosity, coupled with memories of her own mother, compels Maddie to investigate and help Suzanne. Suzanne claims her husband, a doctor, is abusive and won’t give her a divorce. But Maddie’s investigation brings only more questions and inconsistencies. The author, herself a television reporter, gets the details about Maddie's job right and has fun with her “amazing animals” beat—though there's perhaps a bit too much about these stories. The prose is serviceable, the dialogue is credible, and Maddie is likable and believable.
While not gripping, this debut shows enough promise to encourage readers to follow along if it turns into a series.Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61153-342-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Light Messages
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
A complex mystery and yummy grilled cheese recipes. What’s not to like?
The queen of grilled cheese proves for a third time that she’s also a pretty good detective.
Carly’s Grilled Cheese Eatery is the place where Carly Hale serves up delicious and exotic sandwiches. Her latest customers are Dawn Chapin and Klarissa Taddeo, whom she remembers from high school. Klarissa is about to marry Tony Manous, but not all is moonlight and roses. She blames Dawn, her wedding planner, for not reserving a venue for her bridal shower on time. The pair talk Carly into making grilled cheese doughnuts for the party, which Dawn’s mother will host at her mansion. Dawn and Klarissa have been best buds forever, but Dawn, who’s not fond of Tony, feels underappreciated. The shower unfolds without incident until Tony shows up, has a fight with the videographer, and turns up dead at the bottom of a staircase. Neither Carly’s boyfriend, Ari Mitchell, nor Police Chief Fred Holloway, a family friend, is happy to see Carly, who’s been entangled in murder cases before, get involved in this one. But she can’t resist a little sleuthing, and she agrees to help Dawn, who’s naturally come under suspicion. For better or worse, there’s a lot of tension between the Manous and Taddeo families, so Dawn’s not the only suspect. When town manager Gretel Engstrom, who had problems with Tony, goes missing, the case becomes even more unnerving.
A complex mystery and yummy grilled cheese recipes. What’s not to like?Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-72823-838-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The always delightful heroine and her sleuthing family do not disappoint in this mélange of mysteries.
The fearless and soignée Phryne Fisher investigates several mysteries as intriguing as they are perilous in post–World War I Australia.
In addition to excellent taste in clothes and men, the Honourable Miss Fisher has something else: a disdain for rules that’s served her well as a private investigator. She can tell that something’s bothering Dot Williams, her lady's maid and companion, who reveals that an anonymous letter reading only REPENT! was left in Phryne’s mailbox, kicking off the first of her investigations. Her two adopted daughters, Jane and Ruth, are helping out at the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind for a school project, and one of the teachers asks Jane to use her math skills to check over the institute's books, where it seems "there's something amiss." Meanwhile, Phryne drops in on Jeoffrey Bisset, a lecturer in classics and English, who invites her to dinner at his home in Williamstown the next evening. When the time comes, they enjoy each other more than the food, but Phryne finds herself involved in opium smuggling when an after-dinner stroll reveals a man stabbed to death on the beach. Phryne’s sometime lover Lin Chung, a respected leader in the Chinese community, is called to identify the body and resolves to look for whoever’s smuggling opium, a scourge in the community. Phryne sets her adopted son, Tinker, to investigate the anonymous letter while Jane and Ruth try to sniff out an embezzler at the Institute for the Blind. Reserving for herself the dangerous job of tracking down the murderous smugglers with a little help from her friends, Phryne uncovers some surprising answers.
The always delightful heroine and her sleuthing family do not disappoint in this mélange of mysteries.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781728279244
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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