The fourth Ragtime Mystery (The Ragtime Fool, 2010, etc.) is filled with warmth and wonder and interesting music trivia,...
A musical scholar meets his ragtime idol and solves a tangled murder with help from the past.
Elderly Alan Chandler is battling cancer in Seattle, but playing the piano lifts his spirits, especially when it’s a Scott Joplin tune. His old friend Mickey Potash has discovered some notebooks written by Joplin and sends him a sample of the music. An invigorated Alan decides on a road trip across the country to Sedalia, Missouri, to meet up with Mickey and investigate Joplin further. His wife, Miriam, is worried about his health, but his grandson, Tom, accompanies him. Standing in Joplin’s beloved Maple Leaf Club is a surreal experience for Alan, made even more so when he wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that he's been transported from 2016 back to 1899. He’s overjoyed to meet Joplin himself. After this dreamlike episode, Alan goes back to sleep; the next morning, Tom goes to Mickey’s house and finds him murdered in his bed, strangled by a length of piano wire. Tom recounts his gruesome discovery as Alan unsuccessfully attempts to explain his apparent time travel. Nevertheless, Alan’s eager to help Tom investigate. He shares his story with righteous Detective Parks while Tom breaks the news of Mickey’s death to his pal JJ Jackson. Alan feels betrayed when Parks arrests JJ for the murder. Using time travel as an unlikely aid, Alan and Tom crack the case.
The fourth Ragtime Mystery (The Ragtime Fool, 2010, etc.) is filled with warmth and wonder and interesting music trivia, buoyed by the relationship between the two sleuths, which may well echo that between the late Larry Karp and his son, who finished this final installment after his death.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0812-6
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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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