A monumental tale that broaches just about every mystery you can imagine except for the question of whodunit.
Hard-used Italian police Supt. Teresa Battaglia, returning to duty following her latest round of traumatic injuries, encounters some old enemies who just won’t let go.
The most obvious of these is Giacomo Mainardi, a serial killer imprisoned for 27 years, who broke out of prison two weeks ago but turned himself in to the police because he feared for his life and thought prison would be safer than the world outside. A more improbable foe with a different approach but no more scruples is wily District Attorney Albert Lona, who doesn’t want Teresa to think bygones are bygones between them just because he rescued her from a fire that could have killed them both. Her most insidious enemy is her dementia, which has gone from creeping to leaping forward in ways that make it impossible to conceal. As Teresa struggles to reopen the 27-year-old case of Mainardi’s murders and his theft of selected bones from each of his victims, dramatized in a series of flashbacks to the days when she was waiting for the results of her superintendent’s exam and hoping that she and the baby she was carrying could survive the violent abuse of her husband, psychiatrist Sebastiano Battaglia, everyone around her, from supportive Inspector Massimo Marini to longtime medical examiner Dr. Antonio Parri, recognizes that she has some uncanny bond with Giacomo Mainardi, who’s done something truly dreadful with the body parts he’s stolen. Linking the superintendent together with the criminal, and both of them with the fourth-century Christian community of Aquileia, is the heaviest lift of Tuti’s ambitious novel.
A monumental tale that broaches just about every mystery you can imagine except for the question of whodunit.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781641294171
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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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