Here’s hoping that Scotland boasts enough landmarks to give Crawford the chance for an encore.
Crawford, author among other things of Fallen Glory (2017), a history of 20 of the world’s most famous ruined buildings, as well as several books of photographs of Scotland viewed from the air, blends archaeology, architecture, and detection in this collection.
Together with Lin Anderson, co-founder of the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival, and festival director Bob McDevitt, Crawford devised a challenge: gather a dozen of Scotland’s top crime writers and ask each to set a story in one of the country’s iconic buildings. The result is a collection both diverse and surprisingly cohesive. The stories range in time from Lin Anderson’s “Orkahaugr,” which starts in the present but flows back to the 12th century, to Chris Brookmyre’s hilarious “The Last Siege of Bothwell Castle,” in which two larcenous urchins confront a band of Islamic State group terrorists. They also range in tone, from Sara Sheridan’s earnest “Sanctuary,” in which an abused wife seeks safe haven as caretaker at Kinneil House, to Stuart MacBride’s antic “Stevenson’s Candle,” the tale of an inspector whose attempts to restore order at Kinnaird Head Lighthouse spiral increasingly out of control. But the stories all convey a strong sense of place. The characters’ attachment to the site may be instrumental, as in Doug Johnstone’s “Painting the Forth Bridge,” or thematic, as in Denise Mina’s “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit,” or even mystical, as in Ann Cleeves’ “The Return.” But it is never incidental. In bloody Scotland, geography, not biology, is destiny, and these 12 stories demonstrate that fate is not always kind.
Here’s hoping that Scotland boasts enough landmarks to give Crawford the chance for an encore.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-654-5
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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