A gleeful demonstration of the universally acknowledged truth that “if anyone can get away with murder, it’s a writer.”
A wildly metafictional account of what happens, or maybe happens, or sort of happens, to the participants in a mystery writers’ conference at a refurbished California monastery.
Boozy philanderer Ian McCloud, the keynote speaker, has asked his assistant, Bennett Hartley, to make sure Alastair Sinclair—the agent he’s accused of embezzling $2 million of his money—is disinvited from the conference, and to invite Ian’s YouTube promoter, Darius Walker, instead. Although a sudden storm and a blocked entryway keep many of the registrants away, Sinclair shows up anyway. So do Simone Prescott, Ian’s sometime lover; self-published author Isabel Torres; ancient Evelyn Channing and Dexter, her cat. Shortly after the guests settle in under the iffy guidance of novice facilitator Jade Brooks and her sister, Jasmine, a power outage plunges California’s Monastery of the Shrouded Vale into darkness, and the next morning, the writers find Ian’s body floating in a pool outside. As the characters ask whodunit, readers are more likely to ask how many other shameless cliches Brody, or another character identified as The Author who hovers over the whole mishmash, can cram into 560 pages—doubles, disguises, accusations and counteraccusations, red herrings broadly identified as such, flash drives chock-full of incriminating information about everyone on the guest list—and how this can possibly end for characters who keep protesting, “For the last time, this isn’t a mystery novel!…This is real life!” Spoiler: It’s a mystery novel that couldn’t possibly have less to do with real life. If you suspect anyone here of hiding a guilty secret, you’re absolutely right—except that these are actually unending layers of secrets.
A gleeful demonstration of the universally acknowledged truth that “if anyone can get away with murder, it’s a writer.”Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2026
ISBN: 9798217299478
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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