Not the best in Dunn’s long-running series (Superfluous Women, 2015, etc.), this one relies on period detail to charm fans...
An inveterate sleuth investigates a case of too many nannies.
Now that her husband, Scotland Yard detective Alec Fletcher, is out of town on a case and his daughter, Belinda, is home from school, Daisy Fletcher is playing host to Ben and Charlie, her cousin’s West Indian adoptees, whom she plans to show the sights of 1928 London. Their visit to the Crystal Palace includes Daisy’s twins, who are cared for by Nanny Gilpin and nursery maid Bertha; Daisy’s friend Sakari; and retired DS Tom Tring and his wife. Belinda and the boys are exploring on their own when they notice Nanny Gilpin following another nanny and decide to trail them. They catch up just in time to rescue Nanny Gilpin, whom they find floating in an ornamental lake. When Daisy goes searching for her missing nanny, she finds instead a dead nanny in a stall in the ladies’ room. Luckily, Tom Tring is on hand to help with the police. Daisy’s still wondering why the body looks familiar when the soaking wet children arrive to announce that Mrs. Gilpin needs help. Indeed she does: She has a head wound and no memory of what happened to her or why she was following the unknown nanny. The dead nanny turns out to be Teddy Devenish, a cousin of Daisy’s friend Lucy, Lady Gerald Bincombe. Unfortunately for the police, the young man about town had a bad reputation, and plenty of people would be glad to see him dead. Although she knows that neither Alec nor the police will be pleased, Daisy, who’s perfectly placed to mine information from her aristocratic friends, dives into the investigation and comes up with the clues that solve the case.
Not the best in Dunn’s long-running series (Superfluous Women, 2015, etc.), this one relies on period detail to charm fans of classic British mysteries.Pub Date: March 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-04705-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
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
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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