A series debut that retains many of the conventions of a village cozy, just more broadly drawn, like a greeting card.
Under the fig-leaf Black pseudonym, newcomers Jocelyn Cole and Sharon Nagel introduce an animals-only village in which members of many species coexist, except when they’re killing each other.
Nobody much liked Otto Sumpf, but nobody can imagine who disliked the toad enough to stab him in the back and dump him into a pond. The mystery deepens when Solomon Broadhead, the adder who serves as Shady Hollow’s medical examiner, announces that Otto has been poisoned as well, presumably by something introduced into the bottle of plum wine foxy reporter Vera Vixen found near his body. Tracing the bottle to its likely source, the Bamboo Patch vegetarian restaurant, she learns from owner Sun Li, a giant panda with a medical background, that the likely agent was heartstill, a little of which goes a long way. Of the two bears in the local police, Chief Theodore Meade is as usual out past his depth, and the paw prints at the crime scene have led Deputy Orville Braun to arrest crooked raccoon Lefty, who’s obviously innocent of this particular crime. The killer meanwhile moves on to bigger game, wealthy sawmill owner Reginald von Beaverpelt, who survives one murder attempt thanks to Sun Li but not a second, leaving Shady Hollow on shaky financial ground. Although it’s clear that Reginald has been carrying on with rest-home aide Ruby Ewing, the authors mercifully avoid any lurid details of beaver-sheep sex. Instead, intrepid Vera, the most charming figure here, dutifully checks alibis and interviews suspects who draw more clearly on human than animal stereotypes.
A series debut that retains many of the conventions of a village cozy, just more broadly drawn, like a greeting card.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-31571-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
The lavish food descriptions and appended recipes are the best parts of this anemic mystery.
Christmas is coming, but so is trouble for South Lick, Indiana.
Robbie Jordan, owner and chief cook at Pans ’N Pancakes, returns from solving a murder in California just in time for the holiday rush, which is complicated more than most Christmastimes by a number of surprises that disrupt her circle of friends. First, her assistant, Danna Beedle, gets a visit from Marcus Vandemere, a young biracial man claiming to be her half brother, an assertion that thrills Danna despite the doubts of some friends and relatives. Next comes a fire that nearly destroys the home of anesthesiologist Dr. William Geller, a racist whose wife, Tina, reportedly left him years ago. When a skeleton turns up in the attic, the not-so-esteemed doctor has some explaining to do. Robbie’s nemesis, Detective Octavia Slade, who recently married Robbie’s former boyfriend, is more willing than usual to accept help from Robbie, who has a knack for finding things out. The next to die is Tina’s twin, Toni, who knew Marcus from karate classes. Toni’s husband is the prime suspect, but Robbie’s convinced the fatalities are connected. With help from her boyfriend and her network of friends, she attempts to clear things up before the killer spoils her holiday by adding her to his list.
The lavish food descriptions and appended recipes are the best parts of this anemic mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2317-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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