A deft balance of the mystery, the heroine’s ongoing development, and the well-researched setting.
Two investigative agents find that a seemingly straightforward case in Pinnacles National Park may be more meandering than they expected.
Investigative Services Branch Special Agent Felicity Harland barely caught the email that added some of California’s smaller national parks to her list of responsibilities. So when she gets a call about a murder at the Pinnacles Grand Hotel, she has to search her memory to assure herself that it’s in her jurisdiction these days. On the phone, hotel manager James Dunaway, intent on going forward with the hotel’s planned grand opening as soon as the crime is solved, demands that Felicity come out to investigate. Felicity’s dubious, not only because the four-and-a-half-mile hike to the hotel’s remote location is strenuous, but also because her partner in crime-solving, Ferdinand “Hux” Huxley, seems to be off the grid closer to his Sequoia National Park home. She’s not one to let her personal feelings get in the way of duty, though, so she hits the trail to Pinnacles to see what’s what. When she pulls in Bodie Cramer, a pal from her days at the FBI, to help with forensic work on the case, Felicity wonders whether Hux will feel threatened by her friendship with Bodie, which is hard to describe. Felicity and Hux aren’t exactly friends; they’re certainly not more than friends; but they do share a deep connection that she’s reluctant to disturb. When the two of them find Chris Denton with a silk tie cinched around his neck and a glass shard stuck in his back, there’s little question he’s been murdered, with his disgruntled wife the obvious suspect. But like the park it’s set in, the real story has a lot more nooks and nuances.
A deft balance of the mystery, the heroine’s ongoing development, and the well-researched setting.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781639105267
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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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