Lots of local western New York color mixes with amusing characters in a mystery sure to delight.
A Buffalo-area restaurant owner and her feminist grandmother are an impressive sleuthing duo.
Lydia Wienewski has an overwhelming amount of work to do, so it’s not surprising that she forgot to enter an international cooking competition with her specialty pierogis. Her father is recovering from a stroke, so she’s still helping in the family butcher shop, which lost customers after a murdered man was found in the backyard smoker. Lydia’s Lakeside Café and Bakery, where she showcases Polish American food, is consuming her every waking hour as it slowly builds clientele, to the extent that she’s been camping out there to save the time she’d spend driving home. Considering that she dropped out of a prestigious Canadian baking school over disagreements with Madame Delphine Chenault and a short fling with her son, Pierre, Lydia is gobsmacked to see Madame at her restaurant, full of compliments and the revelation that she’s one of the judges at the competition. Lydia is back together with Stanley, her longtime boyfriend, a budding lawyer who helped when she and Grandma Mary solved the smokehouse murder. After staying overnight in the cafe, she and Stanley find Madame’s body on the rocky Lake Erie shore below the cafe’s deck—and then Lydia finds her grandmother parked in a station wagon with her boyfriend, police Detective Harry Nowicki, and learns a bit too much about their private life. Since the cafe isn’t in Nowicki’s area, they call the Acorn Bay police, but not before taking photos of the scene. Once again Lydia and her free-spirited Grandma Mary are suspects in a murder case and don’t hesitate to investigate.
Lots of local western New York color mixes with amusing characters in a mystery sure to delight.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781448311422
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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