A quaint and charming bookstore tale with a healthy dose of intrigue.
In this novel, a criminal who wants a coveted book targets a group of friends.
Five friends and business partners—Felicia Cocolo, Charlie Santorelli, Lavinia “Vinnie” Holcomb, Al Rockleigh, and Lenora Stern—own The Paper Pirate, a bookstore that is in financial trouble due to a balloon mortgage that needs to be paid. The mostly 60-somethings plan a fundraiser, as they risk losing the shop “in less than four months.” While trying to save the enterprise, the five protagonists cope with personal issues—such as Lenora wanting her boyfriend, Jason, to finally make a commitment, and Felicia secretly working on erotica—as well as meeting for a writing group where they review one another’s efforts. But unbeknown to the quintet is Rick Foster—and his partner, Nina Bartov—who is after a copy of Benjamin Conway’s The Stargazer at Dawn. The long-dead author “had never achieved the fame he had no doubt desired, and this tale was an obscure early offering that wasn’t even available from Amazon.” Rick has been offered a half-million dollars for this novel—mainly because it contains significant scribblings from an ancestor of a current Eastern European politician. Later, Rick, under an alias, attempts to buy The Paper Pirate, though the friends decline. Rick and Nina’s criminal partnership grows contentious and increasingly violent as they begin breaking into the homes of the five friends in search of Conway’s work. McIntyre presents a smooth and enjoyable story. Though the tale focuses more on the friends’ personal lives than on the book heist attempt, the characters are individually engaging. Similarly, despite the separate stories for each protagonist along with the overarching plot of thieves wreaking havoc on the friends’ lives, the tale does not feel bogged down by too many character arcs and plot points. Rather, with its accessible prose and captivating players, the story feels lived in. It is evident that the protagonists’ friendships are as meaningful as they are long and that The Paper Pirate is beloved. Still, the series of break-ins feels a bit repetitive, and more time could have been spent on the importance of Conway’s novel. But despite these minor issues, McIntyre’s tale is often cozy and delightful as well as menacing and moving.
A quaint and charming bookstore tale with a healthy dose of intrigue.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1955062183
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
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
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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