An often compelling investigation in an oceanic setting that’s somewhat marred by a self-absorbed protagonist.
In Manolakas’ sequel,a trans-Atlantic cruise for mystery writers turns into a real-life whodunit.
It’s the mid-2010s, and Veronica Kennicott has four novels under her belt, although none have been published. She’s set to join her mentor/writing teacher, Mavis Osborne, and her fellow students on the Queen Anne for the Mystery Writers of the World awards cruise, which will set sail from New York City. However, before the five-day trip begins, police discover Prof. Emeritus Otto Stein of New York Greenwich University fatally bludgeoned in his lower Manhattan apartment; he was about to receive the MWW’s lifetime achievement award. If that’s not unnerving enough, one of the writers on the cruise suddenly dies of an apparent heart attack—and Veronica suspects foul play. When another passenger meets their end in similar fashion,it becomes clear that there’s a killer on board. Veronica, who solved a spate of murders in the past, teams up with a few others to investigate these new ones. This is Veronica’s second appearance, following Manolakas’ Hollywood Plays for Keeps (2014), although this entry works well as a standalone. The main character’s sleuthing skills are keen throughout as she examines bodies more thoroughly than the ship’s doctor and quickly narrows down the suspect list. Her motivations, though, feel questionable, as she seems more invested in proving herself to her fellow writers, especially published ones, and even aims to discredit one individual who dismisses her initial murder theory. Moreover, her narration often comes across as arrogant, as when she avoids her “never-to-be-published classmates” and asserts that one author, whose books she hasn’t read, will “never make a true mystery writer like me.” Still, Manolakas, as in her legal thrillers, composes engaging scenes of characters discussing and debating to reach a solution. She also includes a few intriguing secondary characters, including retired homicide detective-turned-writer Sean O’Flarity; Elias Vlisides,an author who incorporates Greek food into his stories; and an upbeat “Michigan housewife and mother of four” who writes “sex torture-murder books in her spare time.”
An often compelling investigation in an oceanic setting that’s somewhat marred by a self-absorbed protagonist.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2015
ISBN: 9781628050073
Page Count: 465
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
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
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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