An entertaining mystery that’s sure to satisfy returning fans.
A relaxing boat trip takes a turn when a murder forces St. Paul, Minnesota, journalist Warren “Mitch” Mitchell to investigate in Ickler’s latest series whodunit.
Mitch’s mother, Alice, won two tickets for a cruise, and she naturally brought along Mitch; his wife, Martha Todd, an attorney; Mitch’s best friend, photographer Alan Jeffrey; and his spouse, Carol. They soon board a beautiful ship called Felicity Amour, but the opposite of love may be afoot. As they enjoy the beginning of the voyage, exploring ports on the Douro River in Portugal, they meet several intriguing characters; among them is Lady T, a Hungarian aristocrat and television personality, accompanied by her aide, Gigette. She’s friends with another couple onboard, Harold and Estelle Koerner, the latter of whom owns a spectacular emerald necklace. Finally, there’s Charlie Ferris, who owns a jewelry shop. The peace of the cruise is shattered when Estelle discovers that her necklace has been stolen, and Harold accuses Lady T of taking it. Mitch attempts to interview Lady T for an article on the theft, but finds the celebrity to be as mysterious as she is eccentric. As the cruise nears its end, tensions seem to have died down—until someone is found murdered, and Harold again accuses Lady T. As Mitch looks into the crimes, he finds that some friends can be worse than enemies. Ickler returns to his long-running mystery series with another comedic and unpredictable investigation. Mitch exploring Portugal with his family and friends is amusing, and although exposition regarding the setting is intriguing (“It was only a few minutes after nine o’clock, but it seemed as dark and desolate as midnight as I sat alone looking out over the river of gold”), it sometimes slows the narrative pace. However, the mystery itself remains compelling, and the relatively tight group of suspects gives the author more time to develop the various characters and their relationships. Lady T is a highlight with her eccentric way of referring to herself in the third person and her preoccupation with turtles, among other traits that make her unforgettable.
An entertaining mystery that’s sure to satisfy returning fans.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9781977265395
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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