Stifled by the prospect of toiling for a lifetime in his autocratic father's safe architectural practice, Merlin Richards packs his harp and sails off from Wales to America in search of his idol, the irascible Frank Lloyd Wright. Since the year is 1928, Wright is to be found in Phoenix, hovering around the Arizona Biltmore—a building on which he's working as a consultant to forgettable architect-of-record Albert Chase McArthur. Wright, who hates having less than total control of any project, is in no mood to welcome acolyte Merlin with open arms. But Merlin does get a warmer welcome from Rosa Lustig, a talented interior designer who gives him a lift, stands him to a meal, and takes him into her tent (but nothing more, whatever her hopeful beau Pete Bickley, a guard at the Biltmore site, may claim). Rosa is fresh and appealing, more interesting in every way than the suspects who survive when she's bashed to death with one of the ubiquitous decorative concrete blocks that seem to be Wright's most visible remaining contribution to the Biltmore. Once she's dead, stunned Merlin has nothing better to do than get arrested as the obvious suspect, get sprung just in time to be hoodwinked by a bogus newspaper columnist, and ask enough questions to pick out the nondescript killer. Miles, a.k.a. Edward Marston (The Lions of the North, 1995, etc.), presents towering, whimsical Wright and his newest creation (``not simply a fabulous architectural concept, it was an optical illusion'') in a suitably theatrical light. Only the mystery itself is pallid.
Pub Date: March 21, 1997
ISBN: 0-8027-3298-4
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
....is a young man of no means, and expensive tastes, and his nerveless, conscienceless progression is traced from the time when Tom Ripley is sent to Italy to retrieve an expatriate son, Dickie Greenleaf. Ripley attaches himself to Dickie, is annoyed by the adhesive Marge who is in love with Dickie and wary of Tom, and finally when Dickie's friendship cools he kills him and assumes his identity. For several months he lives comfortably on Dickie's income, but a former friend jeopardizes his new security, and he is forced to kill again. This time not only the police- but Marge and Dickie's father are alerted; Tom is forced to assume his old identity but his resilient resourcefulness keeps him immune. The virtuosity here- more than anything else-will pin you to the page.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 1955
ISBN: 0393332144
Page Count: 292
Publisher: Coward-McCann
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1955
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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