The novel’s uneven balance leaves too many characters with not enough to do.
An innkeeper in an otherwise pet-filled paradise wonders if her cousin’s caginess could be connected to murder.
Waking up one morning in her Sugar Maple Inn apartment, Holly Miller isn’t surprised to find herself cuddled up with a pet. After all, in a town like Wagtail, pets are all things to all people. But the pup Holly finds herself in bed with isn’t one of her own, and she’s confused when her Jack Russell terrier, Trixie, and her calico cat, Twinkletoes, don’t seem surprised by the mystery visitor, who’s missing a name tag of his own. A little digging by Holly’s grandmother Oma suggests that the dog is likely Radar, the well-traveled companion of Holly’s cousin Josh Paxton. Holly, who hasn’t seen Josh in more than 10 years, is thrilled that he might have come to town in time to join the family celebration for Oma’s big birthday. When Holly crosses the novel’s eponymous lake to catch up with Josh at his campsite, she learns that he’s not traveling solo. He and his new girlfriend, Dana Carrington, seem to be hiding something Holly can’t identify. Back at the inn, Holly is distracted from wondering more by the arrival of her family, whose oversharing of opinions might well benefit from Josh’s more tight-lipped style. Once the hubbub dies down, Holly circles back to try to catch up with Josh and Dana. Before she can even get the tent open, Trixie lets out a mournful howl, and Holly knows that someone’s dead inside. Will Josh be wrongfully accused of a murder, or is he on the wrong side of the law? Holly is determined to find the truth.
The novel’s uneven balance leaves too many characters with not enough to do.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593436974
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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