Plenty of twists and intriguing characters add up to an enjoyable donut-centric mystery.
A visit to a carnival lands a donut maker in a deep hole.
Emily Westhill has run Deputy Donut with her father-in-law ever since her detective husband was killed in the line of duty. At the carnival she attends with her talented employee, Nina Lapeer, an artist who’s just about to get a one-person show, they run into grouchy event manager Marsha Fitchelder, who seems intent on making their lives miserable. Things go from bad to worse: First, someone steals a large bucket of confectioner’s sugar; then, a magician and a mime steal from the cash box. The best part of the day is the time Emily spends with Detective Brent Fyne, who was her husband’s partner. The two are attracted to each other but are overcome by their shared trauma despite their friends’ efforts to foster a romantic relationship. Back at Nina’s loft, Emily finds a mime who looks remarkably like Nina with her head buried in a bucket of powdered sugar and more sugar thrown all over Nina’s masterpiece. After the mime dies, the police arrest Nina, but Emily’s determined to prove her innocent. Nina’s locket, which the victim was evidently trying to steal, provides a clue that harkens back to Nina’s mysterious past, making her look even guiltier. In the end, Emily and her friends go to a lake resort for a friend’s wedding and find far too many people involved in the death already there.
Plenty of twists and intriguing characters add up to an enjoyable donut-centric mystery.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2558-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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