So there’s Detective Marti MacAlister (she’s black) enjoying a deliciously snowbound honeymoon at a picture-postcard inn when suddenly the phone rings. It’s her partner, Detective Matthew Jessenovik (he’s white). Scratch one slightly used idyll because he needs her. Back in Lincoln Prairie, there’s been a murder, a high-profile murder. The victim—reclusive, 67-year-old Barnabas Cheney of the mover-and-shaker Cheneys—has been found clubbed to death. At first there seems no possible connection between this murder and the startling discovery a few days earlier of a mummified corpse. How could there be? It’s the corpse of a young black woman hidden away for 34 years in a secret corner of an abandoned theater, disinterred by accident; the remains offer few clues to the woman’s identity. But in a town as modestly sized as Lincoln Prairie, how come no one ever missed her? And then Marti discovers that the Cheneys once owned the theater—and a neighboring theater as well, in which another long-ago murder took place. Now it’s clear (to Marti at least) that there’s a connection as real as a blunt instrument. And yet her partner keeps backing away from it. Doggedly, Marti persists with a view of the case that puts considerable strain on the heretofore sturdy MacAlister-Jessenovik relationship. When the smoke clears after a climactic shoot-out, though, we see that as usual Marti had it right. In a series never briskly paced (See No Evil, 1998, etc.), this entry flirts with the downright sluggish. And for the first time, the domestic side, the more interesting side, of Marti’s life fails to get its due.
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-20067-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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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