by Barbara D’Amato ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2001
Despite the “hard” title and the breathless opening sequence, Cat’s ninth case (Hard Evidence, 1999, etc.), turning on a...
Cat Marsala would probably have taken her six-year-old nephew Jeremy to Chicago’s first Grant Park Oz Festival even if Jeremy’s dad Barry weren’t serving as the festival’s general manager. As it is, the presence of Barry adds a special pleasure to their experiences on the Magic Turning Mountains and the Flying Monkeys merry-go-round—and a horrible complication when festival security chief Tom Plumly staggers away from Barry with blood blooming on his chest from a fatal knife wound, and computer systems designer Jennifer Denslow is shot to death minutes later by somebody standing awfully close to Barry. Unable to believe her own brother could be the fiend who pursued her and Jeremy through a spooky parking garage with gun blazing, Cat still has to tell Chief of Detectives Harold McCoo what she saw, and what she saw puts Barry in such danger of arrest that he refuses to believe his sister is really trying to help him. So Cat, marshalling all her freelance reporting skills, homes in on the only possible suspects—banker Edmond W. Pottle, contractor Larry Mazzanovich, and lighting designer E.T. Taubman—and brings the thinly imagined killer to book in plenty of time for Brian D’Amato’s “The Wooden Gargoyles: Evil in Oz,” a scholarly 50-page essay that seems intended for quite a different audience.
Despite the “hard” title and the breathless opening sequence, Cat’s ninth case (Hard Evidence, 1999, etc.), turning on a single clue reminiscent of the short stories in Of Course You Know That Chocolate Is a Vegetable (2000), is her frothiest outing to date.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7432-0095-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
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by Barbara D’Amato and Jeanne M. Dams and Mark Zubro
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by Lorna Barrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
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
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by Agatha Christie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1934
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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