His cool almost-ex Irene is as remote as ever; his violinist lover Joanna is off playing opera accompaniments; but Inspector Bill Slider still feels a bit as if it's old home week, because Sergeant Steve Mills, his old subordinate from Charing Cross, has just come aboard his latest case—the murder or music critic Roger Greatrex, whose throat was cut moments before he was to participate in a BBC panel. Apart from the scurrying of all the panelists and broadcast folk (none of them with any of his widow's reasons, or his mistresses', to do in the philandering Greatrex), who was wandering about in the corridor outside the men's room during those crucial last minutes? Sgt. Mills, that's who, insists a none-too-bright but stridently positive witness; and suddenly Slider, whose biggest worry so far was that his placid new super Eric Honeyman wouldn't give him the manpower he needed to nail down the case, now has to worry about the manpower he's got. A preliminary look into Mills's past leads only to another grisly murder—until Slider bethinks himself of a generic clichÇ that Harrod-Eagles (Grave Music, 1995, etc.) has audaciously dusted off. Briskly sketched characters on both sides of the law, tossed together in situations that crackle with gentlemanly tension- -though you may well wish the killer had had a more substantial tie to eminently killable Greatrex.
Pub Date: Dec. 3, 1996
ISBN: 0-684-80047-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
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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