Formulaic without being too predictable, it’s good for spreading holiday fear.
A murder-mystery weekend turns actually deadly for a group of British friends.
Twelve years after the disappearance of their friend Karl during one of their events, the surviving members of the Murder Masquerade Society have met up at Fenshawe Manor in the Scottish Highlands on Christmas Eve to act out a Twelve Days of Christmas–themed play: “Young people of their class didn’t do cosplay, it would never have occurred to them to trudge around sci-fi conventions dressed like Storm Troopers, but this was their equivalent—with a glamorous booze-filled evening of backstabbing fun thrown in.” Although wealthy, privileged, and on vacation, no one at the party is quite who they seem to be. And when the group is snowed in, the first real victim appears and the body count begins, just like the countdown in the famous Christmas song. No one has reception to call the police, so the friends tough it out in the house without knowing who among them is the killer. Years ago, Charley, the least privileged member of the group, was blamed when a valuable necklace went missing—and she’s determined to avoid taking the fall for the murders. After a long exposition introducing the game and large cast of characters, the pace quickens as the frenemies grow increasingly suspicious of one another. The author of the play has barely disguised the actors’ real-life secrets as funny fictional backstories for their characters, such as this for Charley’s: “She has stolen a priceless necklace from Mrs Dove...” Meanwhile, the snowy Scottish backdrop turns smelly and bloody from all the dead bodies. The deaths are gruesome and fit the theme. Scandals, hurt feelings, and secret ambitions are the suspected motives, but by the time one character rises to the top as a suspect, they’re killed off.
Formulaic without being too predictable, it’s good for spreading holiday fear.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781639366187
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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