A light, entertaining read from a mystery author whose pleasure in her characters remains evident and welcome.
A sports editor encounters death and duplicity in a small-town newsroom.
When Mimi Goldman returns to Chautauqua, New York, after a 16-year absence to resume her duties as sports editor for the local daily paper, she has no reason to expect that she will again be confronted by a colleague’s murder. Yet within five weeks, she discovers the body of the paper’s editor, Joe Wentworth, slumped at his desk after suffering a gunshot wound. Two suspects are arrested in his car with his stolen credit cards, and most Chautauquans consider the matter closed. But Mimi questions the police’s conclusion and launches her own investigation, setting up an elaborate ruse at the newspaper that has her posing as a law enforcement liaison. Soon she’s interviewing suspects and potential witnesses, collecting possible physical evidence from outside the crime scene, and searching through the victim’s belongings. She even enlists her adult son to do some Internet sleuthing. Her probe leads her to uncover romantic and sexual entanglements, unrequited crushes, and past commitments about which her boss and friend was scrupulously reticent. She also discovers a potential enemy from within the newspaper’s own ranks. This is Pines’ (Gone Fishin’, 2016, etc.) third Mimi Goldman outing set in Chautauqua, with the second a whimsical novelette devoid of murders. But both the first book and this one suffer from an insufficient explanation of Mimi’s motivations. The fact that the victims were dear friends doesn’t fully clarify why she willingly sacrifices safety and relationships to pursue her nebulous suspicions. Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable, agreeably paced reading experience with solid character development and numerous plot twists. Mimi gains a new love interest, and her fears about navigating the romance make for some of the tale’s most emotionally resonant scenes. Other relationships are less skillfully handled, especially the sly speculation regarding a male character’s possible crush on a guy. Quirky use of colons (“the other three non-college-aged staffers: were Mimi”), outdated slang (“cig” for “cigarette”), and a character’s repeated recitations of the Lord’s Prayer in its entirety detract from the narrative’s flow. Still, Pines pays particular attention to her delightful lakeside setting, inviting readers to appreciate it through her vibrant descriptions. And though the foreshadowing is a bit clumsy, there are enough teasers and red herrings to make the ending a surprise.
A light, entertaining read from a mystery author whose pleasure in her characters remains evident and welcome.Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5148-9278-7
Page Count: 362
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
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SEEN & HEARD
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