A sweet and often amusing animal-centered whodunit.
A murder disrupts the peaceful mountain town, and an irrepressible Norwegian Forest cat, along with a posse of dogs and a potbellied pig, is determined to find the culprit in this mystery.
Schneider’s clever tale opens with feline Bijou Bonanno discovering a lifeless body lying by the river. The usually feisty cat is stunned, as she immediately recognizes the face of the deceased; readers, however, don’t learn the victim’s identity until well into the novel. After this initial discovery, the story jumps back two months, recounting events leading up to the dastardly deed. Bijou, who takes her “Viking” heritage quite seriously, is an entertaining narrator, and within a few pages she’ll have readers chuckling; as a result, they’ll be willing to toss disbelief to the wind when they find out that she’s the manager of the town of Grey Birch’s Fox Burrow Pet Inn, assisted by her tiny Pomeranian partner, Skunk. (Both animals belong to Spencer Bonanno, the inn’s winsome human owner.) One day in early spring, a new guest, Eddy Line, enters the inn with his two pets—Hamlet, a baby potbellied pig, and Fennec, a frightened rescue pit bull puppy. Eddie’s just purchased the town’s old firehouse, where he plans to open the Witching Flour bakery; renovation of the building’s upstairs apartment isn’t yet complete, so he and his animals will be staying at the inn. Then somebody cuts the gas line to the firehouse, leaving a threatening note behind. There is a genuine mystery at the heart of the novel, and a disturbing animal-cruelty issue rears its head at one point, but for the most part, this is a jovial fantasy jaunt. The four-legged protagonists, including a few additional secondary players from the forest, are smart characters and have articulate conversations, and Bijou, the fearless, ever imaginative leader of the pack, is snarky but lovable and kind. Schneider is generally a skillful wordsmith, although her persistent use of the first-person subjective pronoun (“Tahereh walked over and gave Spencer and I a one-armed hug”) is surprising and disappointing.
A sweet and often amusing animal-centered whodunit.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 264
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2021
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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