Stephanie Plum goes into the backwoods in an amusingly wild ride through parts of Florida tourists rarely visit.
A family trip to the Florida Cracker Trail to honor the past becomes a hunt for a clever murderer.
Mace Bauer and her much-married Mama head off on horseback as part of a large group following the trail cowboys once used to move cattle to market. When Mace and Mama stumble upon the body of wealthy rancher Lawton Bramble, who’s provided land for an overnight stop, Doc Abel proclaims it a heart attack, but Mace has a feeling it may have been poison in the chili he was brewing. Lawton’s much younger wife Wynonna puts on a pretty good show of grief; his daughter Belle appears devastated; and his son Trey stays drunk. Though Trey was Mace’s high-school crush, her heart still belongs to Miami Detective Carlos Martinez, who returned to Miami after the case in which Mace’s Mama was chief suspect (Mama Does Time, 2008). Mace’s life goes into overdrive when her sisters, Maddie and Marty, Mama’s fiancé, Sal, and Carlos all join the trail ride. Trey becomes amorous, his ex-fiancée Austin enraged and Carlos jealous. The obligatory pranks escalate from a ripped tent to a rattlesnake to a runaway horse. Mace maintains her tough shell even though Mama advises her to be more of a clinging vine to win back Carlos. Both of them, however, are more interested in catching a murderer before Mace becomes another victim.
Stephanie Plum goes into the backwoods in an amusingly wild ride through parts of Florida tourists rarely visit.Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7387-1330-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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
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