Readers should hope that this winning mystery series starring a gardener/detective will be fruitful and multiply.
A murder in the precisely manicured gardens of a North Carolina estate leads to an investigation involving fake Civil War relics.
In this second volume of his Penny Summers mystery series, Gordon (Katelyn’s Killer, 2017) transports his heroine to the lush landscapes of Brantleigh Manor. Penny, a former Navy public affairs officer and master gardener, is there as a member of Madison Lerrimore’s residential-design class, savoring the creations of the famed Frederick Law Olmsted. But after they find Madison’s estranged stepfather, Wayland, dead in the bushes, Penny and her friends are soon learning lessons of a deadly kind. They get entangled in a conspiracy that has blossomed around counterfeit Confederate memorabilia. Wayland and some of his fellow Civil War re-enactors sold a bogus battle flag to a wealthy collector. But Wayland cheated his fellow criminals. Then someone shoots Madison in the leg at a re-enactment of the Battle of Asheville. Aided by Kalea, Madison’s daughter, a junior crime scene detective wannabe, Penny investigates the murder, shooting, and fraud. With Wayland’s checkered past, there is no shortage of suspects, including Madison, whom he had abused. Penny even finds time for romance with Aaron Hunt. Previously, Penny and the Navy senior petty officer had solved the murder of his fiancee, Katelyn, although they hadn’t acted on the spark between them then. Will the sleuthing trio, helped somewhat by Penny’s psychic Aunt Zelma, uncover the culprit? Outdoor design wouldn’t seem like a natural jumping-off point for murder, but garden aficionado Gordon makes it feel organic. This well-researched book brings the Asheville region alive, turning it into a character of sorts. As for the protagonist, she is a reluctant detective with a fraught history: She has returned to the area where her childhood ended when her younger brother, Josh, drowned on her watch. Penny, whose mother left after that tragedy, feels a bond with Kalea, who is afraid of losing Madison. So Penny doggedly seeks the truth, in large part to protect her family and friends. For a fledgling garden architect, she proves an engaging and skillful sleuth. Gordon has artfully nurtured a charming whodunit.
Readers should hope that this winning mystery series starring a gardener/detective will be fruitful and multiply.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2018
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
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