Mostly misfires, but the prodigious author of 90-plus novels (The Last Dance, 1999, etc.) has been on target so often...
A varied but disappointing collection by one of our crime fiction icons. The 11 reprints aren’t exactly bad, but they lack the snap, the sense of mastery that makes McBain’s 87th Precinct novels, for instance, work so well. It might be that the author (a.k.a. Evan Hunter) needs room—that his characters have to hold the stage for a while in order to become quirky enough, or heroic enough, or poignant enough to drive a plot. Only in “The Movie Star,” the best piece by far, does any of that happen. A young woman who looks somewhat like Kim Novak begins to refashion herself as Kim Novak—first playfully, then obsessively. Calamity is inevitable, but McBain makes the trip to the graveyard mordantly entertaining. Elsewhere, plot devices masquerade as characters. The title story concerns an implausible husband absurdly jealous of his wife's dog. His attempt to murder the animal goes wrong in a way that will surprise few and annoy others. The theater types in “The Beheading” lost their freshness decades ago. In his introduction, McBain tells us that his children's camp story—the pat, slick “Uncle Jimbo's Marbles”—appeared first in Redbook, and that “Motel”—a tedious riff on the joylessness of illicit love—picked up its latest rejection slip as recently as 1999. Both times you can see why.
Mostly misfires, but the prodigious author of 90-plus novels (The Last Dance, 1999, etc.) has been on target so often throughout a marvelous career that his reputation is virtually bulletproof.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7862-2536-X
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2000
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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