Highly intelligent entertainment.
Renaissance barrister Matthew Shardlake joins Henry VIII’s mammoth progress to the rebellious North on a mission from the wily Cardinal Cranmer.
In the rainy autumn of 1541, in the city of York, clever, upwardly mobile, hunchback lawyer Shardlake and his trusty Jewish clerk Jack Barak slog through trackless forests with orders to protect an imprisoned rebel from his sadistic jailer. Cardinal Cranmer wants the prisoner brought back alive to London where he can be properly tortured for information about a recent conspiracy to unseat the once-glorious monarch, now obese and limping and on his fifth wife. The gloomy city is seething with resentment as Henry’s gigantic entourage approaches. Advance forces have taken over desecrated monasteries to house the thousands of soldiers, lawyers, courtiers, caterers and whores comprising the royal progress, and the Yorkers hate them all. Shardlake quickly stumbles onto the grisly murder of a glazier with ties to the rebellion and then himself becomes the victim of a string of attacks when he finds that the victim was guarding an old jewelry box containing documents that could blow the Tudor succession to bits. He’s knocked unconscious before he can read the papers, which quickly vanish, but someone thinks he knows enough to make him a danger. Shardlake has to elude the murderers, avoid his arch-enemy Sir Richard Rich and stay out of the way of the grumpy monarch, whose frisky, much younger wife, Catherine Howard, may be involved in a fatal flirtation. While Jack dallies with a pretty servant from Queen Catherine’s retinue, Shardlake gets assistance in his inquiries from a kindly old colleague who knows more about the conspiracy than he lets on. As always, former lawyer Sansom (Dark Fire, 2005, etc.) fleshes out the detection with rich historic details presented at a stately pace.
Highly intelligent entertainment.Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-670-03831-8
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
