A suspenseful and resonant story that will captivate dedicated mystery fans and newcomers alike.
Bidulka’s whodunit digs beneath the surface of everyday Saskatchewan life to uncover hidden truths.
Merry Bell, a trans woman, recently returned to her hometown of Livingsky, “broke, alone, [and] about to turn thirty.” She hopes to earn enough money to move back to Vancouver, British Columbia, by opening a private investigation agency. Soon after starting her business, she receives a request to investigate the disappearance of Dustin Thomson, the star quarterback from the local pro football team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Shortly after she agrees to take the case, the player is found dead, drowned downriver under Sweetgrass Bridge. The police, initially uncertain whether to declare his death an accident, become increasingly convinced it was suicide. Merry is fairly certain that his death was due to foul play, and she refuses to give up her investigation, despite being stonewalled by the cops. As Merry digs deeper, she frequently flashes back to her childhood and her more recent experience of transition. Alongside this main story is a subplot involving Roger Brown, a cross-dressing man who’s married to interior designer Brenda Brown, whose office is next to Merry’s; he hosts a popular true crime podcast as his alter ego, Stella, and begins investigating who’s sending mysterious, threatening notes to Merry. These two storylines are each engaging in their own right and thematically similar, but they don’t always smoothly intersect. Nevertheless, the novel’s fast-paced storytelling, featuring carefully revealed clues and a series of double crosses, will ensure that readers stay hooked on the case. Throughout, Bidulka shows a command of natural dialogue, creates sharply defined, realistic characters, and maintains a relatively bouncy tone, despite the occasionally heavy subject matter. It’s a fresh narrative that effectively employs the familiar beats of classic detective fiction.
A suspenseful and resonant story that will captivate dedicated mystery fans and newcomers alike.Pub Date: June 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781988754543
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Stonehouse Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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