Best of all is the Macavity-winning tour de force “Unharmed,” which distills Burke’s talents into five perfect pages.
Doubling the stakes from her current dark thriller Nine (see below), the title enumerates Burke’s complete short stories since 1993. The highly varied menu demonstrates her willingness to tackle a much wider range of crime subgenres than her Irene Kelly novels (Flight, 2001, etc.), though enthusiasm doesn’t always guarantee mastery. Irene and her husband, La Piernas Police Detective Frank Harriman, each get a routine case; the interspersed but unrelated jokes about musicians are the high point of Irene’s. “The Muse” and the Agatha-winning “The Man in the Civil Suit” are content to salute Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha Christie through superficial allusions; the mute avenging spirit in “Ghost of a Chance” seems doomed to an eternal game of Twenty Questions; “An Unsuspected Condition of the Heart” drowns in Regency detail and rhetoric; and “Miscalculation” crams in so much detail about the Queen Mary’s wartime service that it reads like Margaret Truman at sea. Burke’s gifts show to better advantage in her other historicals—“A Man of My Stature,” “The Haunting of Carrick Hollow,” and “The Abbey Ghosts”—because the period trappings don’t overshadow the tonic belief in just desserts that also underlies “The Loveseat,” “Revised Endings,” “Mea Culpa,” and “Why Tonight?” Even better are such tales of forgiveness as “White Trash” and “The Mouse,” both showing Burke at her most distinctively heartfelt, and the chilling “Two Bits,” her darkest take yet on vengeance served cold.
Best of all is the Macavity-winning tour de force “Unharmed,” which distills Burke’s talents into five perfect pages.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-892011-23-9
Page Count: 338
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002
A budding romance and an age-old motive combine in a heartwarming cozy.
A small-town businesswoman’s sleuthing marks her for death.
Winona Mae Montgomery saved her Granny Smythe’s apple orchard from ruin by building a thriving cider and event business in Blossom Valley, West Virginia. She’s receiving praise, and a hefty check, for throwing together a fabulous wedding reception for Elsie Sawyer and Jack Warren when the party's happy mood turns sour. The bride seems angry, the groom tipsy, and Winnie’s heartbreaking ex-boyfriend Hank Donovan’s interested in making out with a bridesmaid. But these minor glitches pale when the groom is found dead under the truck with "Just Married" on the window after having had words with Hank. Winnie developed a relationship with Sheriff Colton Wise in her last brush with murder (Apple Cider Slaying, 2019). Although he’s willing to listen to her ideas, he warns her off the case, a warning she ignores since Hank is a prime suspect. The best man, Aaron, had the key to the truck, but even after it turns up in the visor, Winnie keeps him on her list of suspects, along with the bride and the bridesmaid, who’s made herself scarce. After Hank’s sister, Gina, begs Winnie for help, they discover a bunch of flirty emails from Sarah Bear Twenty-two, who turns out to be the elusive bridesmaid. When Colton tells Winnie that mud found in her house contains mushrooms, she realizes that it may have been left by Hank, who has an old cabin in the woods, and she enlists her best friend, park ranger Dot, to help her find it. Soon after they find camping gear inside the cabin that Hank probably took from Winnie’s house, someone starts shooting at them, and they must run for their lives. Winnie realizes that she must find out a lot more about the bride and groom before she can possibly understand who murdered Jack and is willing to kill again to keep a secret.
A budding romance and an age-old motive combine in a heartwarming cozy.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2349-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Rabbit-obsessed readers (hands, please? anyone?) will love the dedication to all things bunny. Others may find themselves...
A bunny-loving farmer hopes that her telepathic connection to her pet rabbit can help her solve another murder.
Jules Bridge has dedicated her life to the care of rabbits. Not only does she own and operate Fur Bridge Farm, a venue dedicated to bunnies, but she has a number of rescue rabbits, an onsite vet, rabbit fur spinning classes, and even a few pet rabbits of her own. Sharing her love of the species is Jules’ calling, and it’s all in a day’s work when she celebrates young Adrian Richland’s birthday party with some rabbit show and tell. Jules is so focused on all things rabbit that it’s a shock to the system when the party erupts in human drama. Not only does Jules hear Adrian’s mother, Carina, arguing with guest Evelyn Montgomery, but later in the party, Evelyn is murdered, leaving Carina as the prime suspect. Carina approaches Jules about looking into who offed Evelyn, not only to save her own hide, but also because Jules has dipped her toe into investigating in the past (Left Fur Dead, 2019) and struck up a friendship with Sheriff Jack Carver to boot. Carina doesn’t know that Jules has a furry assistant who’s sure to make her investigation a success. Bun, the black-and-white rabbit who’s Jules’ favorite pet, communicates with her telepathically, and he quickly lets Jules know that he’s eager to help her dig into Evelyn’s murder. The investigation the duo launch into Evelyn’s dealings with a local rabbit show reveal that the dead woman was a mean, nasty person with too many enemies to count. Which candidates finally summoned the gall to end Evelyn’s life?
Rabbit-obsessed readers (hands, please? anyone?) will love the dedication to all things bunny. Others may find themselves out in the cold.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2058-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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