Rowlands might as well have set this case in Starbucks, since it comes from the last inch of the pot.
When a music buff is murdered, DC Sukey Reynolds (Unnatural Wastage, 2012, etc.) toggles between helping her boss, DI Rathbone, and her boyfriend, reporter Harry Matthews.
Lance Rainbird is a man of few words, and most of those show off his vast knowledge of classical music. Many of the ladies who attend Justin Freeman’s musical programs are charmed by Lance, but the men don’t cotton to him. Lance looks down his nose at Romeo, an itinerant singer who makes a living busking and always gives a recital at Freeman's annual musical weekend at the Dallington Manor Hotel. This year, though, Lance isn’t around to sneer at the talented amateur; the night before the performance, he’s found drowned in the pond outside. Newly promoted DI Rathbone, anxious to clear his first case, sends not only Sukey, but DS Vicky Armstrong and two uniformed officers to interview everyone on the scene. The four start off by having coffee while they wait for the participants to be on break. They interview the participants, then break for more coffee before reporting their scant findings to an impatient Rathbone. At home, Sukey treads carefully. She wants to help Harry get a story but doesn’t want to divulge details that compromise the case. Luckily, Harry has a brain wave and invites Sukey to London, where she searches Rainbird’s apartment for clues. When she shares what she learns with Vicky, the two are in a position to reinterview several suspects, after stopping, of course, for coffee. But it isn’t until Rathbone invites the team to his office for coffee that Sukey has one of her famous hunches that allows the team to solve a baffling crime.
Rowlands might as well have set this case in Starbucks, since it comes from the last inch of the pot.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8391-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances,...
An anonymous letter brings DCI Harry Nelson memories of past sorrows and present dangers.
The letter mentions a stone circle that harks back to the 20-year-old case of a missing child. Ten years later, another missing child introduced Harry to archaeologist Ruth Galloway when he asked her to examine some bones. That case began a working relationship that turned out to be equally productive in personal terms: A short-lived affair between the two produced a child, Kate, though Harry is married and has two grown daughters. His wife, Michelle, who accepts Kate in their lives, is about to give birth to a baby who may or may not be Harry’s. A new archaeological team working near the site of the original henge finds a stone coffin containing bones. The head of the dig is Leif Anderssen, whose father, Erik, was Ruth’s mentor all those years ago. As Harry continues to receive cryptic messages, the bones of what Ruth thinks is a young girl are found near the new dig, opening up yet another old case. The police think the body is that of Margaret Lacey, who vanished from a street party in 1981. The focus at the time was on her parents; her older siblings, Annie and Luke; and John Mostyn, a neighbor and odd duck who collected stones. But nothing was ever proven, and Margaret’s body was never found. The birth of George, Michelle’s son, puts more pressure on Harry, who loves his wife and Ruth in different ways, to stay in his marriage. Nelson’s team and some friends of Ruth’s use their own areas of expertise to search for clues from the past, but when the child of Annie’s daughter, Star, is kidnapped, the present-day crisis takes center stage.
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances, police procedure, and agonizing relationship problems will keep you reading, and feeling, all night.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-97464-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.
Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).
After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1134-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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