Riggs’ pleasantly old-fashioned sleuth (Bloodroot, 2016, etc.) is still clever enough to come up with a surprising culprit...
by Cynthia Riggs ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 2017
It takes a sleuth with years of experience and loads of local connections to solve the murder of a very unpopular woman.
Poet and amateur sleuth Victoria Trumbull, who’s spent her entire 92 years on Martha’s Vineyard, has rented a room to Zack Zeller, a nice but rather dim young man. While they’re taking a nature walk together, she points out the rare black trumpets of death mushrooms, which, despite their name, are not poisonous. Zack is just one of many men and women who’ve been captivated by wealthy, attractive Samantha Eberhardt, whose vindictive father throws more money than love in her direction. When Zack tries to break up with her, she claims to be pregnant, and Zack plots to feed her some death trumpets, which he hopes will cause a miscarriage. No fool, Samantha tells her father that she thinks Zack is trying to poison her. He invites Zack to a dinner where the mushrooms are served, though not to Zack, who runs away. When Samantha’s found murdered, Zack is naturally the prime suspect, but he has more to fear from vengeful Mr. Eberhardt than the police. Victoria’s certain that Zack is innocent, but she already has her hands full with the case of a young local burned to death in a fire deliberately set at a disused old parsonage. As Victoria mines her sources for information, she finds that Samantha has taken many lovers and gotten many local young people hooked on drugs. Clearly, there’s a surfeit of possible killers to winnow before Victoria can solve the crimes.
Riggs’ pleasantly old-fashioned sleuth (Bloodroot, 2016, etc.) is still clever enough to come up with a surprising culprit in another graceful homage to the island both she and her author call home.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12266-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Categories: MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | COZY MYSTERY | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
Share your opinion of this book
Did you like this book?
More by Cynthia Riggs
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
Did you like this book?
More by Kathy Reichs
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Categories: GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
Share your opinion of this book
Did you like this book?
More by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.