It’s a disappointment but not a surprise that the payoff doesn’t fulfill the promise of this premise. What could?
St. Paul private eye Rushmore McKenzie (Dead Man’s Mistress, 2019, etc.) gets a price put on his head by someone hot for revenge: a man he killed more than 20 years ago.
Psychics can see the future; mediums can contact the dead. Psychic medium Hannah Braaten is a double threat who can do both. At a reading attended by McKenzie’s childhood crush Shelby Dunston, Hannah reveals impossibly intimate personal details about half a dozen attendees before ending with a walloping climax: the news that Leland Hayes, whose armored-truck heist of $654,321 ended 22 years ago when McKenzie, hot in pursuit of the thief as a member of the force, shot him dead, is willing to tell his son and accomplice, ex-con Ryan Hayes, where the money is if only Ryan will kill McKenzie. “Dead men do not talk from the grave,” McKenzie tells himself when he hears the news. “They certainly don’t arrange assassinations.” Even so, it’s a gorgeous setup, enriched even further by the entrance of up-and-coming psychic medium Kayla Janas, whose astral contacts lead Bobby Dunston to the body of missing housewife Ruth Nowak even though her readings aren’t quite as reliable as Hannah’s, maybe because she’s still a college freshman. As the two mediums angle to land a contract that will star them in Model Medium, a new TV series, McKenzie, Shelby, and Nina Truhler, his live-in lover, all worry that McKenzie’s own contract may be canceled. And evidently with reason: Shortly after he transfers the tracking device on his car to a pesky neighbor’s vehicle, that neighbor is found dead. And there’s mounting evidence that the late Leland Hayes, concerned that Ryan might not take up his deal, is offering it to “anyone who will listen.”
It’s a disappointment but not a surprise that the payoff doesn’t fulfill the promise of this premise. What could?Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21217-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
