A riveting procedural with detectives who are as curious as the suspects they’re investigating.
Police investigate a London university where the faculty includes someone who may resort to murder to keep a secret in this crime-thriller debut.
DI Colin McDermott’s latest case is a woman’s death by London Transport bus. It could have been an accident or suicide, but it’s definitely suspicious. There was no ID near the body, for one, and Metropolitan Police learn she had two names: her real one and what she’d used at St. Gregory’s College. Since she died near the college and during the lunch break, McDermott, DS George Ridley, and DC Wilhemina Quinn question St. Gregory’s faculty. Turns out a few of the suspiciously unhelpful professors have applied for the soon-to-be vacated principalship; detectives surmise the victim, a first-year student, in some way posed a threat to an applicant. One of the faculty members later turns up dead in a probable suicide, but McDermott treats it as a second murder, likely at the hands of a single killer. Shady histories among the teaching staff slowly come to light, from blackmail to spousal abuse. McDermott searches for a link between the two victims and determines who at St. Gregory’s has something to hide—something worth killing for. Napier layers his story with subplots, motives, and suspects, with the narrative examining characters just like the detectives do. Pinpointing the culprit is far from easy, and suspense is aptly retained until the tale’s nearly over. Still, the author manages nuance: the DI remains understandably affected by his wife’s terrorist-bombing death a decade earlier and steps in to help his daughter Megan’s friend Pam, whose parents are apparently ashamed of her lesbianism. The dialogue consists primarily of trading information or speculations, befitting the whodunit format. McDermott, however, is not without sardonic wit, calling an especially shifty individual a “veritable paragon of virtue.” Readers unfamiliar with British slang will find plenty of narrative context (for example, an “argy-bargy” is clearly an argument).
A riveting procedural with detectives who are as curious as the suspects they’re investigating.Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 276
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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