If the build-up landed like the fadeout, this one would be headed for Hollywood. Alas, it’s not a wrap.
Debut thriller about an ex-cowboy movie star who earns his spurs in real life.
Former newspaper editor Wright starts with all the right details for another tale of crime in post–WWII Los Angeles: men splash on Old Spice, drive DeSotos, and complain about movies “where it’s so danged dark you can’t see who’s who . . . . ” But when Scotty Bullard pulls pornographic pictures from his late father’s desk drawer, it’s clear Wright has reached for a noir plot canard. Little that follows dispels this sense of the routine, especially as the sometimes-sharp 1940s particulars dissipate, never delivering on their initial promise. Bullard shows the pictures to John Ray Horn, a washed-up star of B-westerns who’s just served a prison sentence for felony assault. The pictures disturb Horn: They show hooded men fondling four- and five-year old girls, one of them being Horn’s stepdaughter Clea, now 16. Horn turns to his ex-wife Iris, Clea’s mother. Iris insists the shots are not of Clea. Then Scotty’s dead body turns up outside his office window. Did he fall? Was he pushed? Does someone want the pictures? Might they also want Clea, who, Iris informs Horn, has just disappeared? One of Clea’s friends leads Horn to a bar where Clea’s bad-news boyfriend hangs out. When Horn approaches the man outside the bar, another thug works over Horn. Quickly connecting the dots (and lowering the tension), Horn learns his assailant was a stuntman with ties to the child molesters. Horn then finds Clea’s boyfriend brutally shot and rescues a sullen Clea. He and his movie co-star, Joseph Mad Crow, team for a showdown with the killers. A scene as touching as it is sentimental caps the last reel.
If the build-up landed like the fadeout, this one would be headed for Hollywood. Alas, it’s not a wrap.Pub Date: May 5, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-15047-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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