A breathtaking combination of police procedural and twisted psychological thriller.
The Scottish Highlands provide the scene for another complex and chilling case for a Glasgow detective with troubles of her own.
After closing another case in the Highlands, DCI Christine Caplan is saying goodbye to her local team before beginning her trip home to Glasgow. Her children are in recovery from a near-death experience on an island retreat, and her husband, Aklen, is too traumatized to leave the house. Before Caplan can depart, though, she’s called back to Cronchie, where a man has jumped or been pushed off the Connel Bridge over the Falls of Lora. It turns out that Ted Maxwell, the victim, was stabbed, and he was a psychologist who had been working on a book about children who kill. His death creates panic in officialdom because the notorious Girl A, who was accused of killing at least three people as a child, has just been released from a psychiatric institute—and the name she chose for her new secret identity is Lora Connel, echoing the site of Maxwell's death. She herself was nearly killed in a recent fire no doubt set by one of the millions of people who hate her, two of them her own sisters, and is now on the run. The laws protecting underage criminals with mental problems make it hard for Caplan to get information about her, but because she's actually Gillian Halliday, who lived with her family nearby and is well known to Caplan’s team, she soon learns her history. Meeting the family and Gillian herself moves Caplan to look into the older crimes. Much to her surprise, she feels that something is off about them even as the higher-ups push for a quick resolution to the Maxwell case and set a deadline to wrap it up.
A breathtaking combination of police procedural and twisted psychological thriller.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781448306763
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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