These resolute protagonists and self-proclaimed mystery buffs should certainly appeal to genre fans.
The latest murder case for amateur detectives Ann Lee and Fang Chen takes them on an intercontinental investigation in this thriller.
Ann’s gumshoe partner/best friend, Fang Chen, and ex-roommate Jane Tian are newlyweds honeymooning at an Italian hotel facing Lake Como. Email correspondence between the friends begins as touristy descriptions but soon zeroes in on intrigue: someone finds nurse Tina Xin’s body floating in the lake. Ann and Fang Chen both suspect foul play, which authorities later confirm, but he can’t do much investigating in a foreign country. However, by sheer fortuity, Ann’s apartment neighbor in Boston, Lao Xin, is Tina’s brother. A postcard from Tina suggests that she’d found the female Red Guard who killed their mother during the Cultural Revolution, but before Xin can provide Ann with specifics, he’s dead from an overdose. Ann’s convinced that the murderer is covering her tracks, starting with Tina’s possible blackmail in Italy. But she needs to find the elusive Red Guard first. Using Xin’s address book, Ann contacts names from the U.S., while Fang Chen, in China for his and Jane’s wedding party (courtesy of her mother), takes a solo excursion to Shanghai. If Ann can’t gather rock-solid evidence, though, she’ll have to extract a confession from a killer. The author (The Fatal Sin of Love, 2015, etc.) excels at understated mysteries, exemplified by series protagonist Ann, a nondrinker who prefers quiet get-togethers but happens to be an exceptional sleuth. The novelist takes a rather charming approach this time, detailing Ann’s ongoing emails with Jane and messages to Fang Chen. The former consist primarily of Ann describing Italian scenery or her meeting with boyfriend Alan Rourke’s parents, while the latter tend to focus on juicy morsels of the murder case, including someone’s shady past. Notwithstanding, it’s an omniscient narrative that further deepens the mystery: nosy neighbor Ms. Brown may become a witness, and series regular DS Paul Winderman assists with much-needed background checks. Ann could be putting herself in danger near the end, beefing up suspense. And despite a later plot turn that relies a little too heavily on coincidence, the resolution satisfies both logically and dramatically.
These resolute protagonists and self-proclaimed mystery buffs should certainly appeal to genre fans.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Back Bay Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
