A clever, entertaining murder tale from a reliably engaging author.
In this ninth installment of a mystery series, nefarious doings are afoot at Merrill Manor, a boardinghouse on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution, western New York state’s unique summer artist community.
It is a tranquil Sunday in mid-July 2021, and Chautauquans are enjoying the freedom of in-person activities after last year’s Covid-19 restrictions. Then a cryptic invitation in the local e-zine, The Grapevine, causes a flurry of excitement: “A Murder Is Announced,” to be held at Merrill Manor that very evening. Not even the manor’s new owner, former Wall Streeter Betsy Kowalski, knows who placed the ad or what it refers to. Nonetheless, she prudently makes the appropriate preparations to welcome a larger than usual crowd for evening refreshments. As night falls, the manor’s eclectic residents—Kitty Nowak, Betsy’s childhood friend; Matilda Willoughby and her older mother, Evelyn, Betsy’s cousins; Frank Paddington and his sister, Amanda; and Sandy Bianchi, the Chautauqua gardener—gather. They are joined by neighbors Bridget Gallagher; her 20-something son, Eric; and retired Judge Jeremiah Hammerle and his third wife, Agnes. Last to arrive is Mimi Goldman, Chautauqua’s own amateur supersleuth. As the guests chat and sip their drinks, the lights go out. The front door opens, and a man steps into the pitch darkness yelling, “Stick ’em up.” Three gunshots follow, and Betsy’s ear is grazed by a bullet. But it is the mysterious intruder who lies dead in the entranceway. He is just the first victim in Pines’ low-action yet intriguingly complicated, twisty tale of greed and deception. The shadow of ever present danger is lightened by skillful, frequently witty dialogue and a couple of charming love stories. The challenge of finding the killer among a trove of suspects is only part of the enjoyment of the author’s crime dramas. She has filled these pages with an assortment of quirky characters of all ages. And the narrative is peppered with pieces of Chautauqua history, evocative descriptions of the serene (and manicured) landscape, and samples of the institution’s annual philosophical/religious/scientific lecture series. This year, the series is focusing on the nature and development of individual identities, a subject conveniently connected to the ultimate reveal of the killer.
A clever, entertaining murder tale from a reliably engaging author.Pub Date: May 31, 2022
ISBN: 979-8832962368
Page Count: 370
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.
What begins as a decorous whodunit set in a gated community on the River Thames turns out to be another metafictional romp for mystery writer Anthony Horowitz and his frequent collaborator, ex-DI Daniel Hawthorne.
Everyone in Riverview Close hates Giles Kenworthy, an entitled hedge fund manager who bought Riverview Lodge from chess grandmaster Adam Strauss when the failure of Adam’s chess-themed TV show forced him and his wife, Teri, to downsize to The Stables at the opposite end of the development. So the surprise when Kenworthy’s wife, retired air hostess Lynda, returns home from an evening out with her French teacher, Jean-François, to find her husband’s dead body is mainly restricted to the manner of his death: He’s been shot through the throat with an arrow. Suspects include—and seem to be limited to—Richmond GP Dr. Tom Beresford and his wife, jewelry designer Gemma; widowed ex-nuns May Winslow and Phyllis Moore; and retired barrister Andrew Pennington, whose name is one of many nods to Agatha Christie. Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan, feeling outside his element, calls in Hawthorne and his old friend John Dudley as consultants, and eventually the case is marked as solved. Five years later, Horowitz, needing to plot and write a new novel on short notice, asks Hawthorne if he can supply enough information about the case to serve as its basis, launching another prickly collaboration in which Hawthorne conceals as much as he reveals. To say more, as usual with this ultrabrainy series, would spoil the string of surprises the real-life author has planted like so many explosive devices.
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063305649
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.
A snap of the yo-yo string yanks Harry Bosch out of retirement yet again.
Los Angeles Councilman Jake Pearlman has resurrected the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit in order to reopen the case of his kid sister, Sarah, whose 1994 murder was instantly eclipsed in the press by the O.J. Simpson case when it broke a day later. Since not even a councilor can reconstitute a police unit for a single favored case, Det. Renée Ballard and her mostly volunteer (read: unpaid) crew are expected to reopen some other cold cases as well, giving Bosch a fresh opportunity to gather evidence against Finbar McShane, the crooked manager he’s convinced executed industrial contractor Stephen Gallagher, his wife, and their two children in 2013 and buried them in a single desert grave. The case has haunted Bosch more than any other he failed to close, and he’s fine to work the Pearlman homicide if it’ll give him another crack at McShane. As it turns out, the Pearlman case is considerably more interesting—partly because the break that leads the unit to a surprising new suspect turns out to be both fraught and misleading, partly because identifying the killer is only the beginning of Bosch’s problems. The windup of the Gallagher murders, a testament to sweating every detail and following every lead wherever it goes, is more heartfelt but less wily and dramatic. Fans of the aging detective who fear that he might be mellowing will be happy to hear that “putting him on a team did not make him a team player.”
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-48565-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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