A would-be mystery boasting a smaller-than-life Sinatra.
In 1962, Congressman Charlie Marder is sent to Hollywood to spy on Frank Sinatra and find out what special favor mobster Sam Giancana, a buddy of the singer's, wants from him.
Charlie, a moderate New York Republican, is forced into taking on the assignment. Under the authority of Attorney General Robert Kennedy (who makes a brief appearance), the feds have imprisoned Charlie's ailing father, power broker Winston Marder, on charges of consorting with criminals. They won't release him until Charlie gets the goods on Giancana. The congressman has fun out West posing as a consultant to The Manchurian Candidate, less fun when he and his sleuthing wife, Margaret, find a dead body in the trunk of their rented car. What's this secret worth killing for? Successful mysteries have been built on weaker premises, but Tapper does little in the way of plot construction. Stuffed with gossipy tidbits that have long withered on the vine and useless trivia (do we really need Janet Leigh explaining the technical achievement of Psycho?), this sequel to The Hellfire Club (2018) never gains steam. Sinatra is a cardboard figure who rants a lot, especially after his pal John F. Kennedy reneges on plans to stay with him during a presidential visit to California. Margaret, a zoologist who entertains herself categorizing the Rat Packers (Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford are "omega wolves"), awakens slowly to their alpha leader's true character: "Sinatra was so mercurial and abusive, she no longer thought his ego was that of the mere superstar." Charlie keeps talking himself into seeing the singer in a more positive vein: "Being a sociopath didn't necessarily mean an absence of charisma," he muses, appreciating Sinatra's "great acts of decency and humanity." The best exchange in the book, uttered at a murder scene, seems unintentionally funny: "Where's the phone?" "It's around her neck."
A would-be mystery boasting a smaller-than-life Sinatra.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53023-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.
When one woman takes on another’s identity to uncover a crime, they both become suspects in a murder.
Aubrey Price and Camille Bayliss come from different worlds, only crossing paths because of the discovery that Camille’s husband, powerful lawyer Ben Bayliss, is hiding something terrible that affects them both. As the novel opens, Aubrey is driving Camille’s Range Rover, then teetering into a bar on Camille’s high heels, with Camille’s dress and credit cards and a wig that mimics Camille’s hair, pretending to be her because Ben tracks his wife’s every move and expenditure, and Camille wants to create a smokescreen while she sneaks into his office in search of evidence of that unnamed secret. But the scheme goes awry, and the women become each other’s alibis after Camille finds Ben murdered in their home. The first part of the book builds suspense and misdirection well, with Aubrey and Ben’s straight-arrow partner, Hank Landry, serving as first-person observers in some chapters while others track Camille. She’s a wealthy and privileged woman but not a happy one, stuck under the thumbs of her husband and her tyrannical father, Randall Everett, who pretty much runs their small Louisiana town. Aubrey was orphaned as a teen when her parents died in a car crash and has proudly fended for herself ever since, coming to depend on her four roommates, who have become friends. But as the cast of characters grows, it seems as if almost everyone in town has a motive for killing Ben, and the piling up of suspects and movements among different timelines can sometimes be confusing. And it all comes to a frustrating end when, after a whole school of red herrings, the solution to Ben’s murder arrives out of far left field.
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780593834459
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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