Mystery, history, and well-paced excitement in a fun read.
This third installment of a mystery series finds a couple crossing the Atlantic aboard the luxurious Isle de France, headed for Paris and a new set of murders and adventures.
It is June 16, 1929. Caroline Case and Hannibal Jones are now married, and the dynamic detectives have decided it is time to leave Chicago and the Al Capone–North Side Gang wars behind them for a while. They are enjoying dinner in a private, first-class dining room when they hear a commotion from the adjacent space. Sure enough, someone has been murdered. Seated at the head of a table, tilted in her chair, is the lifeless body of the wealthy, widowed Mrs. Rosemary Davin Pierpont. Naturally, Caroline and Hannibal are asked by Capt. Blancart to help solve the case. In between wining and dining in luxe style, as Caroline struggles with her fledgling knowledge of French, they successfully employ their superior interrogation skills and their mastery of surreptitiously obtaining the fingerprints of viable suspects. But this is just the first of their adventures. After arriving in Le Havre, they are approached by Capitaine Inspecteur Pierre Soucet, who requests their assistance in solving the brutal murder of a tourist. Their investigation, reflective of their years in Chicago, puts them in the crosshairs of Europe’s organized crime syndicates and France’s corrupt police officials. Caroline, the saucy, ebullient narrator of the novel, speaks to readers through her copious diary entries. Once again, Gertcher combines some solid, old-fashioned sleuthing with period history (including new social upheavals), photographic equipment developments, and comedy, plus a bucket full of acerbic asides. Then there are Caroline’s fabulously extravagant shopping forays into the salons of Paris’ famous designers. The unusual mixture is exemplified by a violent clash that takes place in the Chanel showroom between Caroline and the thugs trying to abduct the granddaughter of an Italian mob boss. Coco Chanel herself is on hand to serve tea during the cleanup. A humorous bonus for sartorially and gastronomically engaged readers is Caroline’s meticulous descriptions of her every wardrobe selection and meal.
Mystery, history, and well-paced excitement in a fun read.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73-514593-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Wind Grass Hill
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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