A first hardcover for the popular Hooper provides all the requisite thrills, chills, and hot-blooded romance, but this southern-style mystery, love story, should-be-a-TV-movie-of-the- week somehow lacks soul. When 29-year-old Amanda Daulton appears at Gloryher childhood home and the place where most of her dead father's relatives still liveshe's hardly met with open arms. Except for Jesse, her grandfather (who's dying of cancer and in the process of preparing his will), the rest of the familysupported by Walker McLellan, the suspicious Daulton family attorneyhave their assorted reasons for suspecting Amanda of fraud; mostly, if she is in fact who she says she is, they wonder why can't she explain the evening 20 years before when her mother Christine snatched her away from Glory under cover of darkness. As Amanda struggles to recall that all-important night, and as most of her family struggles to prove she's an impostor out to get an inheritance, trouble ensues in spades: Amanda's poisoned at a party given by Jesse in honor of her return, Jesse's guard dogs are killed, and potentially dangerous sparks fly between couplesmost notably between Amanda and the still suspicious but undeniably smitten Walker. The anticlimactic climax comes when Amanda learns the truth surrounding the events of her childhood disappearance. Hooper stretches believability to the limits in the final pages; a longtime (practically part of the family) housekeeper turns into a crazed monster, and Amanda is plunged into a highly improbable plot twist involving her recently departed mother. After far too many histrionics, the young woman's destiny is finally fulfilled. A well-traveled path with nary an unpredictable turn. (Literary Guild alternate selection)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-09957-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1995
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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