The three paranormally empowered feline detectives carve out a niche within a niche.
The Witch Detective of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has two clients knocking at her door, each one evidently suspicious of the other.
Since losing her job with the Cambridge Historical Society, Becca Colwin has been hoping that the paranormal powers she’s advertised in venues like Charm and Cherish, the New Age boutique that offers one-stop shopping for the local Wiccan community, will help turn her fledgling detective agency into a moneymaker. Among all the other difficulties of launching such a questionable venture, two are especially troubling. One is that minutes after Gaia Linquist, an aspiring herbalist who works at Charm and Cherish, leaves after asking her help in determining who left poisonous wolf’s bane in her coffee mug, Becca gets a visit from Margaret Cross, the co-owner of Charm and Cherish, who wants her to get the goods on the person who’s been stealing money from the till for the past three weeks—a thief she strongly suspects is Gaia Linquist. This question of how to decide between the two cases or how to juggle them both is daunting enough, but the second problem would be even more vexing if Becca had the slightest awareness of it. She doesn’t have any special powers at all; whatever success she’s enjoyed as a crime solver (A Spell of Murder, 2018) is due entirely to her three cats, littermates who actually do have them. Harriet can conjure physical objects; Laurel can manipulate human minds; and Clara can leap through solid objects. Although the mystery soon deepens to include the death of Margaret’s philandering husband, car dealer Frank Cross, it’s not at all clear whether he was felled by his heart condition or poisoned by wolf’s bane. Simon expertly casts suspicion on one member of her tiny human cast after another, but this series is really for readers who want all cats, all the time.
The three paranormally empowered feline detectives carve out a niche within a niche.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947993-80-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Polis Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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
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