A sometimes-intriguing but often convoluted whodunit.
After witnessing the prelude to a young woman’s murder, an assemblyman’s chief of staff gets caught up in an investigation in Ziman’s tense political novel.
New York City politico Ryan McNeil witnesses state legislators debate the death penalty, and his boss, Assemblyman Nickolas Somatos, reads out Ryan’s impassioned speech against it. Out on the street, Ryan sees Kathy Wilet enter a limousine; readers find out that her boyfriend murdered her with a golf club not long afterward, after they discussed some secret files. As part of an investigation into her disappearance, Ryan gives his witness statement to a police detective, who’s skeptical about Ryan’s timeline of events. Ryan’s girlfriend, Caroline Tierney,works at a law office in a support capacity, and they both embark on a hunt for the truth. As Ryan digs further into Kathy’s past, his actions prompt the governor to deem him a person of interest. Sometime later, Ryan marries Annie McNeil and moves to Washington, D.C., to work for Somatos, who’s become a member of Congress. Back in New York, Caroline continues to probe financial leads in her investigation, which leads her to an arsonist and some very bad actors in the governor’s office. It all ends with multiple unexpected deaths of major characters. At times over the course of the narrative Ziman’s writing style reveals some distracting quirks, as when he introduces his characters fragmentarily, with details about their names, dispositions, and bodily features separated by pages at a time. The author also has a tendency to veer into passive sentence constructions (“A dinner of shrimp, mussels and pasta had been consumed”) and to haphazardly switch between past and present tense, which can be distracting. In addition, some aspects of the plot add unnecessary complexity. That said, the pace of the story is consistently propulsive throughout, which is sure to maintain readers’ interest.
A sometimes-intriguing but often convoluted whodunit.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Quirky characters enliven a mystery with a twisty payoff.
The wedding of a North Carolina librarian and a dentist who’s been elected mayor would be perfect if not for the dead body.
Nothing worse than some family squabbles mars the ceremony, held at a Nags Head hotel, until a corpse pops up in a utility closet the next morning. The dead man, Wayne Fortunada, had accompanied bride Lucy Richardson McNeil’s Aunt Joyce to the wedding, and he'd seemed pleasant enough until the reception, where he drank heavily and was reduced to monosyllabic conversation. Lucy’s already had an unfortunate amount of experience with murder, and her friendship with Det. Sam Watson has enabled her to give him information without risking snarky comebacks. This doesn't apply to the newly hired Det. North, who's helping Sam with the case; he's suspicious of Lucy's friendship with Sam and thinks he should be running the investigation himself. In addition to the murder, Lucy’s concerned about the tension between her brother Kevin and his estranged wife, Kristen, who came to the wedding with a date of her own. Lucy’s motivation to meddle is redoubled when absent-minded professor Eddie McClanahan, library director Bertie James’ date, vanishes on the night of the wedding and becomes the chief suspect. When she and her groom, Connor, track Eddie down at a friend’s beach cottage, he seems unaware of the murder but admits to having known the dead man years ago in New York and being blackmailed by him. Kristen’s date was an actor who also had a past with Fortunada. Blackmailers are obvious targets for murder, but which of the suspects was willing to go that far?
Quirky characters enliven a mystery with a twisty payoff.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781639102723
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Come for the whodunit, stay for the sweet life. Mangia!
Just when a retired investigator thinks he’s out, they pull him back in again.
Former New York homicide detective Nico Doyle is enjoying his morning meal with breakfast pal Gogol and pooch OneWag at Bar All’Angolo in idyllic Gravigna, Italy, when redheaded little girl Cilia Bianconi disrupts his daily ritual by running boisterously around the cafe, pursued by Livia Granchi, her embarrassed mother. It’s only after the two have departed that Gogol points out that Cilia has sneaked a note under OneWag’s collar. Saverio Bianconi, Cilia’s father, has been implicated in the murder of his business partner, Giancarlo Lenzi, and is currently on the run, naturally heightening suspicion of his guilt. Nico waffles about pursuing the case. For one thing, he’s deep into a romance with artist Nelli Corsi, his first relationship since the death of his wife, Rita, the event that triggered his initial move to Italy. Eventually, however, he makes the six-hour trip north to Pitigliano to look into the matter. His long, tangled investigation begins with his friendly interview of Lenzi’s cousin, Matteo. Suspicion falls hard on Lenzi’s elusive son, Eddi, who’s often at odds with his father. Trinchieri’s fifth Tuscan mystery continues to expand Nico’s adopted community. The pursuit of the perpetrator often takes a back seat to her portrait of a contented community in picturesque rural Italy. It even concludes with a recipe for “Penne Alla Nico.”
Come for the whodunit, stay for the sweet life. Mangia!Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781641296953
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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