An atmospheric, red herring–strewn mystery that deftly captures an era’s angst and ambition.
In 1919 San Francisco, a vaudeville singer with secrets investigates the murder of her pianist and lover in this historical crime novel.
New Jersey native Viola Clark, in her late 20s, is thrilled to see her act, “Viola Vermillion—Red-Hot Blues Chanteuse,” listed on the marquee outside San Francisco’s Pantages Theater. She performs with Stu Wiley, the talented songwriter who accompanies her on piano. Stu has become her lover during their travels together as part of a 13-act vaudeville troupe touring the West Coast. But Viola is surprised to see that Stu wears her gun and has $75 in his money clip. Shortly thereafter, she is shocked to find Stu shot dead by her gun in the theater balcony and the money and “the red leather notebook I’d asked Stu to safeguard for me” gone. She learns from a local police detective that her lover is the long-thought-deceased son of Alcatraz’s lighthouse keeper, with a body identified as Stu’s having washed ashore in 1915. Viola proceeds to probe the puzzles of Stu’s past, including his entanglements with folks still on Alcatraz and the troupe’s female impersonator headliner and the flirty female half of its dance couple. Viola also deals with her rising attraction to Jimmy Harrigan, her replacement accompanist. Unbeknown to her, Jimmy, a hired missing-person’s expert, has been tracking Viola for months in the belief that she is an East Coast munitions tycoon’s runaway wife. Another troupe member’s death eventually leads to the unexpected killer getting caught in a snowballing cover-up. Later, the arrival of the tycoon via his private rail car turns into a violent showdown.
This mystery series opener from California-based author Brazil immerses readers in the bright lights and colorful world of vaudeville while shading in darker, noirlike aspects of its players, era, and setting. Vaudeville details, such as the maneuvering to secure the best time spot on stage and the inclusion of unusual acts (in this case, one featuring “French Poodle Acrobats”), prove essential to unraveling the whodunit plot. Several characters are also recovering from World War I–era trauma. Jimmy feels badly about his journalist friend, the Army medic who stepped in front of a bullet for him, since “the shot that tore through Erwin’s upper arm...probably made every keystroke on that typewriter a misery.” Viola was recently released from an East Coast sanatorium, after having nearly died of influenza. She is angry about the deadly munitions factory explosion that the police concluded was done by “Germans.” A particularly striking and touching moment is when several troupe members put their military uniforms back on for a special performance on Neptune Beach, presented as a “a thank-you to the army boys who came home last week.” Brazil also includes several effective misdirects involving the investigation of Stu’s murder. The growing bond between Viola and Jimmy is also well developed, whetting interest in their future adventures, which will certainly come with complications.
An atmospheric, red herring–strewn mystery that deftly captures an era’s angst and ambition.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 374
Publisher: manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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