by Jerry Raine ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 1997
On his way to stick the day's receipts from his off-license in the night depository, Chris (who's too small-time even to have a last name) gets himself mugged. The thief doesn't get away with anything, but he leaves Chris bruised and sore and determined to identify him, even though he didn't get much of a look. The stage seems set for a classic game of cat-and-mouse, but first-timer Raine has something much more offbeat in mind. Leo Dash, the unsuccessful mugger, is a melancholic ex-truck loader on the dole who's still dazed by the recent suicide of his kid brother. And Chris is no angel himself, with a long history of stealing from his employers; a more recent inability to decide between the favors of a film company secretary and the girl at the off- license—so that he's been enjoying them both—and a half-baked plan to rob one of the shops at the local mall. The real joker in this pack, though, is Dashy's mate Kevin Jenkins, whose sexual ethics make Chris's look courtly, and whose one goal in life is evidently duplicating Dashy's attempted mugging, with a more lucrative result. An improbable friendship sprouts between depressive Dashy and struggling Chris, one step away from the dole himself, but nobody will be fooled into expecting either of them to escape their tight little island. Raine's plotting wobbles too uncontrollably to confirm the hints of a downscale Patricia Highsmith or Ruth Rendell. But there's nothing false or tentative about his lightning sketch of his proles' weary desperation.
Pub Date: April 23, 1997
ISBN: 1-899344-13-6
Page Count: 184
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1997
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by Agatha Christie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1934
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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by Robert Goldsborough ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2020
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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