This delightful mystery succeeds in uniting two kindred souls in need of a change.
In this novel, a man and a woman team up to solve seemingly unrelated crimes, both hoping to leave behind their ruts and find new directions for their lives.
April September and Preston Tremlock are approaching middle age with plenty of dreams but little success to show for them. April is a fledgling mystery writer collecting rejection slips while working a banking job she hates. Preston is an amateur detective loathed by the local police force that he pesters with his investigative theories. The two meet when April storms into Preston’s office at the insurance company where he has a short-term gig. Despite such an antagonistic beginning, they discover they both love mysteries. Although she’s engaged, April agrees to go out for coffee with him after he returns her notebook, which she had lost. Their big break comes when April’s bank is robbed by a trio of Santas, after which millions of dollars disappear. The insurance company, which has fired Preston, offers a $250,000 reward for whomever discovers the missing money. April quits her job and proposes to Preston that they combine their resources by moving in together, focusing on finding the cash (“We’re going to collect that reward. Plus I’m going to write about it and sell it”). April decides Preston is gay without ever confirming that. Together, they forge ahead blithely, ignoring danger, toward a brighter future. In this charming mystery, veteran screenwriter Olek has created a memorable pair in April and Preston. Both think they’re the smartest people in any room, which leads to frequent clashes between them. Later, the fact that Preston isn’t actually gay results in more bumps in their road. But their deductive powers and analytical skills are ideal for the task at hand. Their unorthodox methods and willingness to skirt legalities leave them far ahead of the local cops. As a result, the police fail to uncover the bank theft’s important connection to some murders. Olek’s engaging narrative flies along with April and Preston as they careen from one false lead to another, unbothered by failure. They’re a winning combination, hopefully one that the author will bring back for another case.
This delightful mystery succeeds in uniting two kindred souls in need of a change.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 9798838416575
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
© 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.
