Beneath all the red sauce, Bruns offers standard cozy fare with a dash of detection on the side.
A young widow seeks the killer of a fellow restaurateur.
Tessa Esposito is slowly adjusting to the loss of her husband, Dylan, murdered 14 months ago. With the help of her assistant, Stephanie Beaudry, and her cousins Gabby and Gino, she's focused on making her Italian place, Anything's Pastable, the best dining spot in Harvest Park, New York. She has the full support of her handsome landlord, Vince Falducci, who intervenes when customers like Mario Russo get too friendly. Tessa dislikes Mario not only for being a letch, but for opening The Espresso Lane in direct competition with her old friend Archie Fenton's Java Time. So it would hardly have rocked Tessa's busy world to have Mario stabbed to death during Harvest Park's annual Festival of Lights if the police—meaning her cousin Gino, who's the local chief—didn't focus on Archie as the prime suspect. Desperate to help her friend, Tessa looks for alternatives and finds many: jilted lovers, shady loan sharks, and Archie's hotheaded son. There's also an old girlfriend in Mario's past who died after their last date. With all this sleuthing to do, you'd think Tessa would hardly have time for the obligatory romantic complications, but in addition to the attentions of hunky Vince, there's Justin, a firefighter with a sense of humor who's looking for a promotion from Dylan's best friend to Tessa's best squeeze.
Beneath all the red sauce, Bruns offers standard cozy fare with a dash of detection on the side.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8431-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
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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