For dessert, Schutz serves up “Meeting of the Minds,” a memorable cat-and-mouse tale that sucks you in with the same cool...
A dozen stories, mostly reprints from 1988–2001, show that an expert private-eye writer doesn’t need a whole novel to get tough.
Schutz isn’t always tough. “The State versus Adam Shelley,” which treats a modern Frankenstein’s monster as a clinical problem for the justice system, pays for its sensitivity by pulling punches. And the Philip Marlowe pastiche “The Black-Eyed Blonde” seems miles from both Chandler’s knight-errant and the author’s own no-nonsense working stiffs. But Schutz hits his stride when his investigators’ work brings them into contact with high-power lines even though they haven’t set their sights higher than making a living. “Whatever It Takes” may be a routine case for young Matt and Sean Ellis, process servers searching for a guy who wants to persuade them to walk away, but its sequel “Til Death Do Us Part,” the one new story here, offers an unexpectedly barbed answer to why a Boston blueblood has run off to Provincetown to marry another man. Forensic psychologists Ransom Triplett and Matthias Waldman pack double doses of detection and menace into “Not Enough Monkeys” and “Expert Opinion.” Best of all are three tales starring shamus Leo Haggerty (Mexico Is Forever, 1994, etc.), including the pitch-perfect title story, whose grim payoff is strictly business.
For dessert, Schutz serves up “Meeting of the Minds,” a memorable cat-and-mouse tale that sucks you in with the same cool professionalism as its serial killer.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-59414-371-4
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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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