An entertaining, quick beach read with memorable mismatched sleuths.
Cochran’s cozy mystery revisits a 20-year-old case concerning the mysterious disappearance of three men who lived in an old mansion.
In the northeastern town of Stillwell sits a mansion built in the late 19th century and purchased by health-products guru Asa Marlowe in the 1940s. After Asa’s death, his impressive fortune, including the mansion, was inherited by his son, Asa Marlowe II, commonly called Junior. In time, Junior also had a son, Asa Marlowe III, called Three. Junior and Three lived in the mansion with their wives, Eunice and Carmela. Then there was Roscoe Savini and his wife, Felicia; town gossip holds that Roscoe was Junior’s illegitimate son, born around the same time as Three. Two decades ago, all three men disappeared. In the present, Eunice, Carmela, and Felicia live in the mansion. Retired Stillwell PD detective Harvey Hawkshaw is watching television when he sees a news report on the 20th anniversary of the disappearance—it had been Harvey’s case, the one that still haunts him (“‘Same as it was 20 years ago, Fluffy,’” he says to his cat. “‘I thought those biddies did it, but I couldn’t crack that case. Cold then and cold now’”). A $150,000 reward is offered for solving the mystery. Two young boys digging around on the Marlow property discover a long-buried body. Could this be one of the missing men? It’s time for Harvey to put his detective’s cap back on. Hanging out at his go-to diner, Harvey runs into a fast-talking jokester who goes by the name Flywheel. Harvey takes Flywheel on as his investigative trainee—Cochran has created the genre’s newest delightful odd-couple detective duo. This is a romp of an investigative procedural, low on action and tension, that mixes a bit of slapstick comedy with a heavy dose of jovial, sometimes silly, sometimes clever, repartee. With a cadre of quirky supporting characters and a plethora of decadeslong secrets waiting to be exposed, the narrative amuses and intrigues. There are enough twists to keep readers scratching their heads, and Harvey and Flywheel develop into enjoyable, fully fledged characters that appear likely to helm a sequel.
An entertaining, quick beach read with memorable mismatched sleuths.Pub Date: March 6, 2023
ISBN: 9798987764497
Page Count: 302
Publisher: Book Writer Corner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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