The charming heroine has all too little to work with in this overlong and not very mysterious series opener.
Dirty deals are covered up by murder.
In a departure from her Flower Shop series (Tulips Too Late, 2018, etc.), Collins introduces a divorced mother who’s returned to Michigan and the suffocating bosom of her Greek family. Athena works at her father John Spencer’s garden center along with her younger sister, Delphi. Under the name Goddess Anon, she blogs out her frustrations with her family, who, failing to recognize that they’re the subjects of the blog, find it highly amusing. Working late one night, Athena disturbs a man trying to remove something from a life-size marble statue of her namesake that her grandfather had recently purchased, planning to use it to adorn his diner. Talking to strange men alone is not a wise idea, but Case Donnelly’s extraordinary good looks and his tale that the valuable statue actually belongs to him turn her head. The statue, however, is the least of her worries, for all the shops on Greene Street, known as Little Greece, are about to be torn down by powerful developer Grayson Talbot Jr., whose late father had planned to cancel the project. Athena, who’s dating annoying lawyer Kevin Coreopsis to keep her mother happy, soon becomes involved in protecting Case, who’s been seen leaving the scene of Talbot employee Harry Pepper’s murder. It seems a strange coincidence that everyone who was opposed to tearing down Little Greece has suddenly died. Believing Case innocent, Athena hides him on her grandfather’s rarely used boat, and a haircut, a beard, and some bronzer turn him into a Greek fisherman. As the leaders of the Greek community fight to save their shops, Athena attracts Talbot’s interest. He tries to bribe her by offering both an area for the diner and a large apartment for her grandparents in the new construction he plans. Her refusal puts her in danger from someone who’s already killed twice.
The charming heroine has all too little to work with in this overlong and not very mysterious series opener.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2433-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Proceed at your own risk.
Pioneering pathologist Kay Scarpetta (Trace, 2004, etc.) goes up against a wraithlike killer whose self-appointed mission is to “relieve others of their suffering.”
Practice, practice, practice. If only 16-year-old South Carolina tennis phenom Drew Martin had stuck to the court instead of going off to Rome to party, her tortured corpse wouldn’t be baffling the Italian authorities, headed inexplicably by medico legale Capt. Ottorino Poma, and the International Investigative Response team, which includes both Scarpetta and her lover, forensic psychologist Benton Wesley. But the young woman’s murder and the gruesome forensic riddles it poses are something of a sideshow to the main event: the obligatory maundering of the continuing cast. Wesley still won’t leave Boston for the woman he tepidly insists he loves. Scarpetta’s niece, computer whiz Lucy Farinelli, continues to be jealously protective of her aunt. Scarpetta’s investigator, Pete Marino, is so besotted by the trailer-trash pickup who’s pushing his buttons that he does some terrible things. And Scarpetta herself is threatened by every misfit in the known universe, from a disgruntled mortician to oracular TV shrink Marilyn Self. Cornwell’s trademark forensics have long since been matched by Karin Slaughter and CSI. What’s most distinctive about this venerable franchise is the kitchen-sink plotting; the soap-opera melodrama that prevents any given volume from coming to a satisfying end; and the emphasis on titanic battles between Scarpetta and a series of Antichrists.
Proceed at your own risk.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-15393-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.
An accountant and her lawyer husband must revisit his high school days in order to solve a murder.
Lee Woodyard is no fan of the scheme her husband, Joe, and her uncle, Hogan Jones, the local police chief, hatch to buy the Bailey house next door and flip it. But even though she’d rather be at her job as business manager at her aunt’s chocolate specialty shop (The Chocolate Bunny Brouhaha, 2016, etc.), she agrees to meet with the plumber for an estimate—a meeting that turns dangerous when plumber Digger Brown finds a bundle of rags in the cellar. When he drops them, a gun hidden in the bundle goes off, sending a bullet whizzing past Lee. No one seems to know where the old fashioned six-shooter came from, but the accident recalls a past incident in which the Sharks, a group of high school boys that included Brad Davis, Chip Brown, Sharpy Brock, Tad Bailey, and Spud Dirk, pulled a prank that could have been deadly. Years ago, when several Sharks pretended as a joke to rob a convenience store in which Brad was working, Brad pulled a real gun and fired but hit nothing more vital than the Frozen Rainbow Machine. Now Brad’s the president of the VanHorn–Davis Foundation, whose charitable donations underwrite many improvements to the Michigan lakeside town of Warner Pier. When Lee accompanies Hogan to the Bailey house to show him where the gun was, they find more than they bargained for—Spud’s corpse in a cupboard. Although Hogan’s the police chief, he must stay out of the investigation because Spud had been competing with him to buy the Bailey house. So Lee, who’d prefer to stick to chocolates, is forced to join Joe in detective work.
A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-10000-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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