An entertaining look at the lives of movie stars real and imagined.
The excesses of the Roaring ‘20s include murder.
Englishwoman Emma Blackstone lost her husband in the war and her family to the Spanish flu. Her in-laws, religious Jews who were furious that their son married a gentile, refused to help till Kitty, her actress sister-in-law, hired her as a companion. Movie star Camille de la Rose, as she’s known in Hollywood, has scores of lovers, including the studio head. But her true loves are her three adorable Pekingese, whom Emma cares for in addition to rewriting movie scripts, keeping Kitty on schedule, and helping her juggle her lovers. Kitty is currently feuding with Darlene Golden, her co-star in a historical epic that’s being filmed in New York. Emma is constantly pestered by the author, who’s appalled by the changes made to his book. Although Emma still mourns her husband, she’s recently formed a relationship with cameraman Zal Rokatansky, whose Jewish mother would not be pleased. When Kitty gets a letter with a marriage proposal from Clark Dexter that includes an offer of $50,000, divorce in a week, and all expenses paid, she’s tempted to accept despite a warning from a famous director that Clark is dangerous. Ensconced at the Plaza Hotel, the cast members travel to a studio in Queens and a rented mansion on Long Island for the shoot and spend their nights partying in New York’s finest clubs alongside gangsters, Broadway stars like the Marx Brothers, and wealthy young men like Clark Dexter. Then Mila, Darlene’s stand-in, is found shot dead in the Palace Theatre, and everyone initially thinks the victim is Darlene. Emma, who’s already solved several murders, finds plenty of suspects among the smugglers using the mansion to hide booze and both stars’ jealous lovers.
An entertaining look at the lives of movie stars real and imagined.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781448314881
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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