A highly entertaining mystery fueled by a smooth blend of irreverence and ’60s ideology.
Detroit native Snearly’s Motor City mystery revolves around a disgraced English professor’s attempt to clear his name, which has life-changing, and life-threatening, consequences.
Wayne State University professor Jack Crost is best known for his class on 1960s counterculture literature. A trio of entitled, overprivileged students struggling to pass his class decide to set Crost up by producing a video that inaccurately depicts the prof as racist and unhinged; it goes viral on social media, and overnight, he becomes the “most hated man in Detroit.” Forced into a yearlong sabbatical, he retreats to the wilds off the Upper Peninsula to spend a year at his family’s old home and write the Great American Novel. But his fixation on clearing his name leads him to hire Murphy (“just Murphy”), a Vietnam veteran, former Detroit cop, and Jack Daniels–imbibing Buddhist who’s considered a top-notch private investigator. As Murphy and Crost dig deeper into the mysterious activities of the three students, they unexpectedly become targets of dangerous criminals involved in a drug-manufacturing enterprise—a new kind of meth in pill form called Howdy Doodys. To complicate matters, Crost falls for Maggie Stollard, a Wayne State professor whose graduate assistant allegedly committed suicide just as Stollard was about to complete an experiment involving quantum entanglement. Snearly’s novel has a few plot inconsistencies, as when one of the villains inexplicably acts out of character toward the end. However, the story is powered by exceptional character development. Crost’s, Murphy’s, and Stollard’s backstories are all impressively detailed and deep; a major narrative thread, for example, is the death of Crost’s wife 20 years earlier during a home robbery and his conversations with her in his dreams. Another notable element is the heaping helping of iconic 1960s references, including such novels as Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971), and Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan (1968).
A highly entertaining mystery fueled by a smooth blend of irreverence and ’60s ideology.Pub Date: June 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-66783-090-2
Page Count: 398
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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