An engrossing mystery with plenty of engaging characters and a romance fraught with trust issues.
A freelance obituary writer pursues her side gig as an amateur sleuth.
Winter Snow has already helped solve a murder, but her boyfriend, Det. Kip Michaels, wishes she would stick to writing. When her friend Carla lets Winter know that an obit she wrote has been totally messed up, naming Winter herself as the deceased, she rushes to get it quashed before it ruins her reputation. Meanwhile, she’s received a text from Scoop, a reporter friend who covered a fire that resulted in the death of an unhoused man known around Ridgefield, Connecticut, as Wandering Chester. Scoop is a person of interest in a few fires he’s covered, though he thinks this one doesn’t fit the pattern and has refused to reveal his source to Kip. Winter’s Uncle Richard and her neighbor are protective of her but happy to help with sleuthing. When Kip asks her not to release Chester’s obit, her curiosity gets the better of her, putting her at odds with Kip. Her discovery that Chester was murdered explains Kip’s silence, as he clearly wants to protect her. Tracking down Chester’s background, Winter learns from a woman whose recently deceased son was his friend that his last name was Halliday. And Chester’s sister-in-law reveals that he was a private detective working undercover, nosing around and asking Carla questions about burials as he searched for the schemers planning to sell and resell burial plots to unsuspecting people. As they unearth more clues, Scoop begins getting threatening messages, and someone starts following Winter. Are the fires related to Chester’s murder? The answer may be the death of them all.
An engrossing mystery with plenty of engaging characters and a romance fraught with trust issues.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798892421133
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
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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