This cozy yarn with compelling characters will please mystery fans, despite some fumbling at the finish line.
An unlikely detective probes the murder of an unpleasant man in Pepper’s mystery.
The mysterious Hamish Rosser, a shady Scottish peer of the realm, is a powerful man who keeps valuable secrets. With his reluctant assistant, the down-on-his-luck journalist Ollie Moorhouse (“The truth is the Scotsman fucking terrifies him”), Hamish pays mysterious visits to a variety of characters: He offers the bumptious Lord Arnold Leebury a post in government and obliquely threatens Arnold’s young and beautiful wife; he pledges suspiciously large donations to Greg Jacobs, a lonely widower who runs a charity for troubled youth. Many people have reason to murder Rosser, and, sure enough, somebody does, leaving his body in the woods. As the narrative unfolds, the suspects are drawn with more depth. Arnold’s wife, Magdalena, is cleverer and more of a survivor than she seems. The mostly affable Arnold is desperate to keep his new political appointment—maybe desperate enough to get rid of Hamish. Greg, still mourning the loss of his wife, is struggling to connect with the young people under his supervision. Ollie, the one person readers know is innocent, grows into a bumbling but likable detective to solve the case. Pepper’s prose is brisk and evocative, bringing a variety of British locales vividly to life. Hamish, the murder victim, is oily and nasty enough for the reader to be happy when he meets his end. The other characters have well developed and distinct personalities, and their stories are compelling even when they’re not engaged sleuthing. (Magdalena, who seems like the most likely suspect, is particularly three-dimensional, even as she keeps her secrets.) This is, however, a murder mystery, and the author summons a fun Agatha Christie–like atmosphere as each character, in turn, comes under suspicion. Despite this great promise, the pacing in the final third undercuts the tension, and the revelation of the murderer feels a bit anticlimactic. Still, the satisfying conclusions of many of the characters’ stories are enough to carry the reader through to the final pages.
This cozy yarn with compelling characters will please mystery fans, despite some fumbling at the finish line.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781805142836
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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