Once again, the fifth from Parker (Iron Ties, 2013, etc.) is much better history than mystery, drawing the reader into the...
A feuding couple returns to Colorado only to become embroiled in several murders.
Mark and Inez Stannert own the Silver Queen Saloon together with Abe Jackson, whom Mark has known since the Civil War. The couple has just come home to Leadville from an extended trip to Inez’s relatives in Manitou Springs. After Mark vanished for more than a year, Inez had started divorce proceedings, which are currently on hold. But she took a lover in Mark’s absence, and the Rev. Justice B. Sands is still first in her heart. While visiting Abe’s very pregnant wife, Angel, Inez meets Madame Drina Grizzi, a fortuneteller visiting Mrs. Alexander, the local undertaker’s wife. When Drina is found strangled with fancy corset laces, Inez is drawn into the mystery of her murder because she recognizes the laces—which were sold in her saloon by a drummer specializing in fancy ladies’ unmentionables who’s shortly found dead himself—and because she’s met Drina’s daughter, Antonia, who’s posing as a newsboy called Tony. Tony had tried to shoot Brown, one of the English remittance men who patronize the Silver Queen, thinking he’s the same Brown who Drina always claimed was coming to rescue them from poverty. Inez tries to hide Tony, dressed as a girl, with a friend, but she insists on going to work for the undertaker in hopes of finding her mother’s vanished body. The town is filled with rumors concerning doctors who steal bodies to dissect them, the Reverend’s behavior, and the possibility that the Englishman Brown's promising claim may actually be worthless. While Mark tries every trick in the book to keep Inez from divorcing him, she attempts to hunt down a killer while agonizing over the difficult decision she must make.
Once again, the fifth from Parker (Iron Ties, 2013, etc.) is much better history than mystery, drawing the reader into the stunning beauty and harsh realities of life in 1880s Colorado.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0623-8
Page Count: 412
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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