The best thing about this debut is the chili recipe (tried and tasted) that ends it.
The perfect wedding gift: strychnine for the bride.
What’s keeping the bride? It turns out to be a fatal case of indigestion caused by a cup of herbal tea laced with poison. Stella Lavender, currently handling undercover drug busts for North Carolina law enforcement but yearning for a transfer to Homicide, is on the spot to find out whodunit and why after her granny, Fern, invites her to the nuptials at the Rosscairn Castle Bed & Breakfast. Wyatt, the innkeeper, insists it’s all a plot to close him down. He cites the maple syrup in the air-conditioner compressor, the ammonia in the water softener, the dead raccoon in the driveway and the spray painting on the inn sign. But Stella, relying on computer input from her ex and chats with the bridal party, uncovers several other motives for killing Justine, including the fact that before she started calling herself Justine and had gender reassignment surgery, she was named John. Did the groom know? Did his parents, who operated an ultraconservative online church ministry? Did his sister and her gay partner? Did the best man, whose wife died of anaphylactic shock at a picnic six months before? Did the couple who filed a $1 million lawsuit against the birthing center where Justine worked? While she’s sorting through all the possibilities and sexual proclivities among the attendees, Stella’s undercover drug buys put her and her flirtatious granny in jeopardy, necessitating a short stay at a neighboring B&B, whose owner loathes Wyatt even though her son works for him. There’ll be one more fatality before a commitment ceremony and a sperm-donor pregnancy conclude Stella’s first murder case.
The best thing about this debut is the chili recipe (tried and tasted) that ends it.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2637-6
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
A Gone Girl–esque confection with villainy and melodrama galore.
A wealthy woman with a handsome husband is preyed on by a ruthless con artist.
One day at the gym, Amber Patterson drops the magazine she’s reading between her exercise bike and that of the woman who happens to be beside her, Daphne Parrish. As she bends to pick it up, Daphne notices that it’s the publication of a cystic fibrosis foundation. What a coincidence—Daphne’s sister died of cystic fibrosis, and, why, so did Amber’s! “Slowing her pace, Amber wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. It took a lot of acting skills to cry about a sister who never existed.” Step one complete. “All she needed from Daphne was everything.” Everything, in this case, consists of Daphne’s outlandishly wealthy and blisteringly hot husband, Jackson, and all the real estate that comes with him; Daphne can definitely keep her two whiny brats. Amber hates children. But once she finds out that Daphne’s failure to give Jackson a male heir is the main source of tension in the marriage, she sees exactly how to make this work. Amber’s constant, spiteful inner monologue as she plays up to Daphne is the best thing about this book. For example, as Daphne talks about the many miseries her sister Julie went through before her death, Amber is thinking, “At least Julie had grown up in a nice house with money and parents who cared about her. Okay, she was sick and then she died. So what? A lot of people were sick. A lot of people died.…How about Amber and what she’d gone through?” Meanwhile, poor, stupid Daphne is so caught up in the joy of finally having a friend, she seems to be handing Jackson to her on a platter. Constantine’s debut novel is the work of two sisters in collaboration, and these ladies definitely know the formula.
A Gone Girl–esque confection with villainy and melodrama galore.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-266757-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thriller fans will delight in this latest escapade. Cussler and co-author Burcell have delivered a winner.
The 10th and latest Sam and Remi Fargo adventure (The Romanov Ransom, 2017, etc.) is a fast-paced tale that reaches back to the early days of automotive glory.
In Manchester, England, in 1906, the Gray Ghost has gone missing. That’s the Rolls-Royce prototype developed by Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, and the loss threatens to financially ruin them. They hire a detective to locate it, but he is murdered. In the present day, Sam and Remi Fargo hear about the car, which turned up after World War II but is now missing again. It's always been owned by the Payton family, which generations ago was the Oren-Payton family, and may be worth many millions of dollars. Raising the stakes even higher, the 1906 thieves may have hidden treasure inside the car, though there was no trace of it when the Gray Ghost was found after the war. But jealous modern-day cousin Arthur Oren has the car stolen and then loses track of it—has the thief he hired stolen it twice? It’s a complicated and clever plot, with Sam and Remi trying to find it for the current owner, Lord Albert Payton, Viscount Wellswick. The 1906 journal of Jonathon Payton, fifth Viscount Wellswick, provides a solid backstory. The Fargos are great series characters, whip-smart and altruistic self-made multimillionaires who can afford to take time from their charity work to dabble in dangerous adventures. Oren knows they’re involved, and he wants them both dead and the car returned. An accomplice suggests first making the Fargos destitute by freezing their bank accounts and credit cards. Then the bad guys can arrange a fake suicide. It’s fun to watch Sam and Remi get out of dicey scrapes, once by driving an Ahrens-Fox pumper fire engine out of a blazing building. Oren asks, “How hard is it to knock off two socialites?” He finds out the hard way; he should have just acquainted himself with Cussler’s series.
Thriller fans will delight in this latest escapade. Cussler and co-author Burcell have delivered a winner.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1873-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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