An edgy tale replete with searing instances of wartime terror and the desperation it drives people to.
Winter 1943. Under orders from Admiral Doenitz, the offbeat detecting duo of Gestapo Hauptsturmführer Herman Kohler and Sûreté Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr (Kaleidoscope, 2001, etc.) travel to Brittany in Occupied France to investigate the murder of a widely loathed shopkeeper. Préfet Kerjean has arrested U-boat captain Johann Kaestnes for the crime, but Paulette, the shopkeeper’s abused daughter, announces that her father knew a secret about the relationship between stunning Madame Charbonneau and the Préfet and the Captain. Madame’s stepdaughter hates her, her concert-pianist husband is dementedly digging up artifacts in the hills, and bits of an antique doll belonging to her family have been found near the shopkeeper’s corpse. Could that doll have anything to do with the missing funds the shopkeeper and Kaestnes were going to use to open a doll-making business? While Kohler concentrates on the German confederates of Kaestnes, St-Cyr inquires into the disappearance of Kerjean’s son—and runs afoul of a protective husband, clandestine shipping, and blackout restrictions on the reading of old press clippings. Palming a cyanide tablet conveniently left available, St-Cyr succeeds in stopping a suicide, but Kohler is too late to rescue Paulette and her wheelchair-bound mother. Nazis loom. A Jew is uncovered. In the end, Kohler and St-Cyr barely have time to absorb the tragic resolution of the case before they’re assigned to yet another murder.
An edgy tale replete with searing instances of wartime terror and the desperation it drives people to.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-56947-285-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2002
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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