Steady, unspectacular, expertly paced work from all hands, with a particularly satisfying payoff.
An anonymous phone tip sends DCI Bill Slider to a well-hidden house in Shepherd’s Bush harboring a host of even better-hidden secrets.
A woman eventually identified as Prudence Chadacre, nee Kate Armstrong, a secretary at the Historic Buildings National Drawings Archive, has taken a fatal tumble down the stairs inside Dunkirk House—except that she hasn’t; there are clear signs that she was beaten to death and her fall never happened. The victim was so quiet, solitary, and withdrawn from the world that it’s no easy matter to generate a list of suspects, let alone figure out which of them might have had a motive for killing her. From almost the beginning of Slider’s inquiries, the most promising lead seems to be the death of Prue’s mother, Sandra May Chadacre, who drowned in her bath in the same house 20 years ago. The earlier death was discovered by Sandra’s son, Philip Armstrong, who’s clearly a person of interest now that his sister has died as well. And when at last Philip turns up, his artless confession—“I killed my sister, and it makes you tired, killing people”—bids fair to close the case. But Slider and his team aren’t ready to stop considering Magnus Armstrong, Sandra’s ex-husband, now a wealthy, powerful developer planning a run for Parliament, or Tony Scrimgeour, the handsome young man who managed the rare feat of insinuating himself into Prue’s good graces before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Steady, unspectacular, expertly paced work from all hands, with a particularly satisfying payoff.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-7278-5018-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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