Aimée’s 15th outing is a killer, with all the suspense, all the surprise and all the Parisian flavor you’d expect from Black.
Aimée Leduc (Murder in Pigalle, 2014, etc.) puts everything on the line to solve her most vexing cold case—the murder of her father.
In France as elsewhere, the Roma live by their own rules, forging alliances and settling disputes within their own clans. So when Nicolás Constantin, a manouche teenager, approaches Aimée, she can hardly believe what he asks of her: to come to Hôpital Laennec on the Left Bank so his dying mother can make peace before passing. Convinced that Drina Constantin’s deathbed confession will shed light on the explosion in Place Vendôme that killed her detective father, Aimée leaves her infant daughter, Chloé, with child minder Babette and hurries over to the chic 7th arrondissement, only to find that Drina has disappeared. Aimée is torn. She wants to be a good parent, especially now that the child’s father, Melac, and his new wife, Donatine, have shown their determination to challenge her for custody. But to be the parent Chloé needs, Aimée needs to understand her own parents. What did her father know that made someone want to get him out of the way? And was his death connected to the disappearance of her mother years earlier? Aimée’s search for answers takes her to the chic homes of haute bourgeoisie like Madame Uzes, who pinches her pennies while running missions for the gens du voyage; meanwhile, Aimée’s partner, René, haunts dives like La Bouteille aux Puces, where Madame Bercou knows somebody who knows somebody who might know Drina. But it isn’t until she finds Roland Leseur, an official at the Quai d’Orsay, whose younger brother Pascal, before his presumed suicide, was the youngest deputy in the Assemblée Nationale, that Aimée gets an inkling of the lofty heights her case will reach.
Aimée’s 15th outing is a killer, with all the suspense, all the surprise and all the Parisian flavor you’d expect from Black.Pub Date: March 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61695-286-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Perfect for readers who wish To Kill a Mockingbird had been presented from a slightly older, male point of view.
Eskens’ latest novel is a warmhearted story of a white teenager's awakening to the racial tensions that run through his Missouri town in 1976.
Years before he’ll become a successful attorney (The Shadows We Hide, 2018, etc.), Boady Sanden struggles to navigate all the usual high school ordeals in small-town Jessup, including boring subjects and bullying by the likes of all-state wrestler and prom king Jarvis Halcomb. In Boady’s case, these everyday problems are aggravated by his outsider status as a non-Catholic freshman at St. Ignatius High School, his home life with his widowed, introverted mother, Emma, and, most recently, the arrival of some new neighbors, the Elgins. Charles Elgin is definitely an improvement on indolent Cecil Halcomb, Jarvis' father, whom he replaces as manager of the local manufacturing plant after bookkeeper Lida Poe disappears with more than $100,000 of the plant’s money. Jenna Elgin is excellent company for Emma Sanden, whom she helps draw out of her shell. And after a comically unfortunate first encounter, Boady quickly takes to their son, Thomas, who’s exactly his age. But the Elgins, like Lida Poe, are African American, and the combination of an unsolved embezzlement, good old boy Cecil’s displacement by an outsider, and the town’s incipient racism works slowly but inexorably to put Boady, recruited by the Crusaders of Racial Purity and Strength, under pressure to betray his new friendship. Declining to join the racists but repeatedly running away rather than refusing their demands point blank, Boady must navigate a perilous route to supporting his community and claiming his own adult identity.
Perfect for readers who wish To Kill a Mockingbird had been presented from a slightly older, male point of view.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-50972-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
What starts off as Easter eggs ends up as one big, shapeless omelet in Lucy’s feckless 21st.
A holiday tradition turns lethal in small-town Maine.
The residents of Tinker’s Cove have always dressed their toddlers in their Sunday best for the annual Easter egg hunt at Vivian Van Vorst’s beautiful mansion. But this year, Pine Point is looking a bit seedy. The lawn is unkempt, no one is directing traffic, and VV is nowhere to be seen. Worst of all, her grandson, Van Vorst Duff, dressed in a bunny suit, drops dead at the gates of the estate before he can hide a single egg. Lucy Stone (Chocolate Covered Murder, 2011, etc.), ace reporter for the Tinker’s Cove Pennysaver, takes time off from covering the town council meeting to help her colleague Phyllis’ niece Elfrida cater Van’s funeral—giving her plenty of opportunity to snoop. She discovers that VV is being confined to her room and fed nothing but canned nutritional supplement while her granddaughter Vicky Allen and Vicky’s husband, Henry, aided by unscrupulous lawyer George Weatherby, sell off her priceless art treasures. When the Allens give VV’s faithful butler Willis the sack, they have a fight on their hands. Thanks to local attorney Bob Goodman, the trio is brought to trial on charges of elder abuse. Reporters from all over the country choke the streets of Gilead, the county seat. Famous defense attorney Howard Zuzick, representing the Allens, looks as if he might have some tricks up his sleeve. But surprise! Meier drops that plot and instead packs Lucy off on a mission to hunt down VV’s long-lost daughter for former librarian Miss Julia Tilley.
What starts off as Easter eggs ends up as one big, shapeless omelet in Lucy’s feckless 21st.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-2935-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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