An engaging family tale with a strong cast.
A life-changing revelation finds an amateur sleuth juggling another mystery and her strained marriage as she embarks on a search for her biological father.
Dietz’s third book, a sequel to her series debut, The Flapper, the Scientist and the Saboteur (2016)—her second work was a prequel featuring the flapper character—picks up at the funeral of Kathleen McPherson. The adopted Beth Armstrong believed this “redoubtable” woman was her aunt only to learn she was actually her mother. “My aunt’s my mom and my mom’s my aunt and they’re both dead,” Armstrong laments, and she becomes consumed with finding out “who in the world is my father.” Other mysteries immediately present themselves: Is she being stalked by the driver of a beat-up old truck? Who was the unannounced woman playing saxophone at Kathleen’s funeral? Armstrong’s husband, Harold, can be forgiven for feeling let down when he discerns her true agenda after she suggests the pair take an impromptu Caribbean vacation on St. Thomas. “I thought we were off to recapture the romance in our marriage,” he tells her. “Instead we’re off on a mystery hunt for some guy who’s probably long dead.” Romance definitely takes a back seat when, in their hotel bar, Armstrong notices a picture of the saxophone player. “There’s a connection,” she insists. “When does this vacation actually start?” Harold responds. The loss of the unflappable Kathleen robs Dietz of her most intriguing character, but she introduces several vividly drawn stand-ins, including Gnat, an “exceptional child,” and Missus Abu, who “knows everyone and everything—quite a good friend to have.” There are tense scenes, such as an early encounter with a street thief, but it is the personal stakes rather than the mystery that will hold readers’ interest. The stage is skillfully set for more “wild stories.”
An engaging family tale with a strong cast.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-945212-55-0
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Quill Mark Press
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.
An aspiring mystery writer sets out to solve her great-aunt’s murder and inherit an estate.
Twenty-five-year-old Annie Adams has never met her great-aunt Frances, who prefers her small village to busy London. But when a mysterious letter arrives instructing Annie to come to Castle Knoll in Dorset to meet Frances and discuss her role as sole beneficiary of her great-aunt’s estate, Annie can’t resist. Unfortunately, she arrives to find Frances’ worst fears have come true: The elderly woman—who’s been haunted for decades by a fortuneteller’s prediction that this will happen—has been murdered, and her will dictates that she will leave her entire estate to Annie, but only if Annie solves her killing. It’s a cheeky if not exactly believable premise, especially since the local police don’t seem terribly opposed to it. Annie herself is an engaging presence, if a little too blind to the fact that she could be on the killer’s to-do list. Her roll call of suspects is pleasingly long, including but not limited to the local vicar, a one-time paramour of her great-aunt’s; a gardener who grows a lot more than flowers; shady developers and suspicious friends from Frances’ past; and Saxon, Annie’s crafty rival, who inherits the estate himself if he manages to solve the case first. Annie pieces together clues through readings of Frances’ journal, but the story eventually runs aground on the twin rocks of too much explanation and a flimsy climax. Cute dialogue gives way to lengthy exposition, and by the time Frances’ killer is revealed you may well be ready to leave Annie, Dorset, and Castle Knoll behind for the firmer ground of reality. Fans of cozy mysteries are likely to be more forgiving, but if you cast a skeptical eye toward amateur sleuths, this novel won’t change your mind about them.
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474013
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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