An enjoyable romp through the drawing rooms, theaters, and docks of early-19th-century Philadelphia.
Sensitive Edgar Allan Poe and his mysterious comrade C. Augustus Dupin team up with Poe’s wife and an eccentric taxidermist in Street’s (Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster, 2016) second novel.
When Miss Helena Loddiges, last met during Poe’s investigation into his family’s sordid history in London, turns up on his Philadelphia doorstep with a message from a dead raven and concerns about a murdered friend, Poe can’t turn her away. She’s a welcome diversion, really, from his obsessive concerns about his wife Sissy’s health. Despite Helena’s outrageous hobby and sense of fashion, her story about Andrew Mathews, a bird collector, and his son Jeremiah, both of whom had recently traveled to Peru and then ended up dead, has the ring of truth, which seems confirmed when she is abducted. The heart of this mystery, and the most striking descriptions and imagery in the novel, revolve around birds; Andrew and Jeremiah kept journals of their South American discoveries, beautifully illustrated, and some of the pictures seem to be clues. Then there is the legend of “the jewel of Peru,” a magnificent emerald buried in a tomb. Poe and Dupin must confront a formidable professor, several criminal priests, some violent nativists, and their old nemeses, George and Rowena Reynolds, to save Ms. Loddiges and discover the truth about the jewel. The mystery—in fact, the whole novel—offers more shiny surface than deep complexity, but it’s fun. The descriptions of the birds and the focus on exotic places differentiate it from Street’s first Poe/Dupin novel, and while there isn’t as much need for “ratiocination,” there is also less depressive, self-condemning narration from Poe. It feels a bit like old Indiana Jones returning for The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull—a bit ridiculous but entertaining all the same.
An enjoyable romp through the drawing rooms, theaters, and docks of early-19th-century Philadelphia.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-667-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Utter non-scents.
Die-hard Yankee candle maker Stella Wright (Murder’s No Votive Confidence, 2018) gets caught up in a trans-Atlantic murder plot.
Stella thoroughly enjoys her trip to Paris even though her mother, perfume expert Millie Wright, who’s scheduled to speak on a panel entitled “The Art of Scent Extractions” at the World Perfumery Conference, gets preempted by a murder. Sadly, once they’re back home in Nantucket, things get even weirder. Stella receives an anonymous note threatening her mom if Stella doesn’t turn over a secret formula hidden in Millie’s bag. Her mom can’t help because she’s in the hospital courtesy of an overenthusiastic attempt by Stella’s cat, Tinker, to befriend her. While trespassing on a suspicious sailboat, Stella meets U.S. Agent Sarah Hill, who warns her that well-known anarchist Rex Laruam plans to disrupt the upcoming Peace Jubilee using a stolen formula he secreted in Millie’s bag after he stabbed the agent guarding it back in Paris. Ignoring the advice of her friend Andy Southerland, a Nantucket cop, to leave detection to the professionals, Stella tries to unmask the elusive Laruam. As she spies on a bevy of unlikely suspects, the plot spirals further and further out of control: There’s a Canadian couple staying at an Airbnb run by Stella’s cousin Chris who whisper sweet but suspicious nothings in the dark, a shovel-wielding schoolmarm, a gang of old geezers who have a collective crush on Millie, a surprise 30th-birthday party planned by Stella’s beau, Peter Bailey, and an even more surprising impromptu airplane ride.
Utter non-scents.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2141-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.
A plucky group of early-20th-century detectives (Murder on Trinity Place, 2019, etc.) takes on the Black Hand.
The leads include Frank Malloy and Gino Donatelli, former police officers who started a detective agency after an unexpected legacy made Malloy a wealthy man; Malloy’s wife, Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy society family who runs a maternity clinic for the poor; and their nanny, Maeve, a budding sleuth who works in Malloy’s office. All of them leap to attention when Gino’s sister-in-law Teodora reports that Jane Harding, a worker at the settlement house where Teo volunteers, has been kidnapped by the Black Hand, who are notorious for abducting the wives and children of anyone who can afford to pay ransom. The New York Police Department is corrupt, and the local Italian immigrants never report crimes. Mr. McWilliam, who runs the settlement house, had asked Jane to marry him, but she’d asked him to allow her to experience more of the single life before deciding. Seeking clues, Sarah visits Mrs. Cassidi, an earlier kidnapping victim who’s refused to talk to anyone, in hopes that her nursing experience and sympathetic manner will get results. Mrs. Cassidi admits to being raped but knows little about where she was held captive, a quiet place in a house where she could hear children. Soon after Nunzio Esposito, a leader of the Black Hand, tells Malloy that no one’s been taken from the settlement house, Jane suddenly reappears but refuses to discuss where she’s been. Lisa Prince, Jane’s well-to-do cousin, reluctantly agrees to take her in even though Jane’s jealous of her wealth and can be unpleasant to deal with. When Esposito’s found murdered in a flat he rented for his mistress, Gino, who’s just arrived on the scene, is arrested. Now the clever sleuths must solve both the murder and the abductions to clear Gino’s name.
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0574-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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