An entertaining, many-layered mystery with an engaging hero.
A millionaire nonagenarian turns up dead just after his Canadian estate hits the market.
In this debut mystery, wealthy, aging historian Edward Mitchell lists his Niagara-on-the-Lake estate in Ontario with a local realtor. That night, Mitchell pours a glass of wine, but something goes wrong “between his palate and the pinot.” The “unwavering aroma of death” hits the back of his throat. Just before dying, Mitchell thinks, “those who live long enough get their just reward.” Chief Homicide Detective Bryan Dee begins the murder investigation just as his best friend, Kris Gage, flies into town to help his aged parents move from their large country home. Gage is an urban planner, and he suggests to Dee that Mitchell’s death is connected to land acquisition: “I think he was killed for his property.” The Belucci Group, a major property development firm, is not above suspicion, as the top executives have “their fingers in a lot of well-paying pies.” Of concern is the whereabouts of widower Mitchell’s latest will, presumably written after his only offspring, John, died in an accident five years ago. Mitchell now has no heirs—or does he? Although aged, he had remained an imposing presence who “got looks from women half his age” and whose medicine cabinet was chock full of Viagra. Gage believes Mitchell “was trying, right to the bitter end, to get someone pregnant” so he would have an heir. Looking around Mitchell’s mansion for clues, Dee is shocked to find the entry “Time to take care of K. Gage” in the deceased’s diary. No match for author Louise Penny’s famed Quebecer, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, Dee is nonetheless appealing as a middle-aged, golf-loving cop who rose through the ranks due to circumstances rather than talent. Gage, whose first-person account smoothly alternates with third-person narration, is, like Lang, an environmentally conscious urban planner. Considerable Canadian history is woven through the enjoyable book, as are rich descriptions of the country. The pacing is superb and surprises are frequent, but some readers may object to the abundance of four-letter words (Chapter 18 is called “No Fucking Trees!”).
An entertaining, many-layered mystery with an engaging hero.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-228-83225-6
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Tellwell Talent
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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