A fine example of historical fiction that will find an enthusiastic audience among pet lovers and fans of classic Hollywood.
Private detective Babs Norman takes on the mystery of the disappearing Hollywood dogs in Crowens’ historical novel.
In this pet-centered whodunit, the author takes readers back to 1940 and the days of classic Hollywood, where young private detective Babs Norman and her delightfully irreverent sidekick Guy Brandt attempt to solve the mystery of the disappearing dogs. The canines in question are hardly ordinary, and Babs, recently evicted from her apartment in West Hollywood, hopes to earn substantial reward money for finding them. One of the dogs is Leo, the beloved cocker spaniel of actor Basil Rathbone (famous for his portrayals of Sherlock Holmes), and the other is Asta, the highly trained fox terrier featured in the famous Thin Man films. Hired on retainer, Babs and Guy plunge into the competitive Hollywood celebrity culture, while Basil Rathbone assists them, using the sleuthing techniques of his most successful on-screen character. The motives for the canine abduction are unclear, but suspects include the mysterious German countess Velma Von Rache, who has an unusual interest in dog breeds and whose name reminds Babs of a revealing clue in the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet. And then there are the German-accented late-night phone calls to the home of Asta’s highly accomplished trainer, Henry East, demanding the sale of certain purebred animals. Could someone be holding the dogs for ransom? The novel takes several unexpected turns as Babs finds herself literally at sea, caught in a dangerous world spiraling rapidly into World War II. The story is well written, and protagonists Babs and Guy are endearing, but the narrative can be too cluttered at times by the sheer numbers of famous Hollywood actors, writers, and directors who make appearances. While some might struggle with the occasionally shaky balance between story and setting, readers interested in this golden era of American filmmaking will no doubt appreciate the author’s obvious mastery of the period.
A fine example of historical fiction that will find an enthusiastic audience among pet lovers and fans of classic Hollywood.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781685125424
Page Count: 299
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.
The Medusa myth, reimagined as an Afrocentric, feminist tale with the Gorgon recast as avenging hero.
In mythological Greece, where gods still have a hand in the lives of humans, 17-year-old Medusa lives on an island with her parents, old sea gods who were overthrown at the rise of the Olympians, and her sisters, Euryale and Stheno. The elder sisters dote on Medusa and bond over the care of her “locs...my dearest physical possession.” Their idyll is broken when Euryale is engaged to be married to a cruel demi-god. Medusa intervenes, and a chain of events leads her to a meeting with the goddess Athena, who sees in her intelligence, curiosity, and a useful bit of rage. Athena chooses Medusa for training in Athens to become a priestess at the Parthenon. She joins the other acolytes, a group of teenage girls who bond, bicker, and compete in various challenges for their place at the temple. As an outsider, Medusa is bullied (even in ancient Athens white girls rudely grab a Black girl’s hair) and finds a best friend in Apollonia. She also meets a nameless boy who always seems to be there whenever she is in need; this turns out to be Poseidon, who is grooming the inexplicably naïve Medusa. When he rapes her, Athena finds out and punishes Medusa and her sisters by transforming their locs into snakes. The sisters become Gorgons, and when colonizing men try to claim their island, the killing begins. Telling a story of Black female power through the lens of ancient myth is conceptually appealing, but this novel published as adult fiction reads as though intended for a younger audience.
An engaging, imaginative narrative hampered by its lack of subtlety.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9780593733769
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
