It’s not until the second half of this tangled, noisy, forgettable tale that Holmes and Watson turn up, and even then Holmes...
The city of Minneapolis is sprucing itself up for President William McKinley’s impending visit. So it’s a particularly inopportune time for a naked corpse to be found hanging from a tree outside Mayor Arthur Adams’s childhood home. Was barman-turned-millworker Michael O’Donnell indeed murdered by the Citizens Alliance for the Maintenance of Order and the Freedom of Labor, as a sign around his neck proclaimed? Why was his corpse displayed so publicly after his death? And who was the lady his camera had caught in flagrante with Randolph Hadley, chief enforcer of the Secret Alliance? O’Donnell’s former boss, tavern owner Majesty Burke, asks her colleague Shadwell Rafferty to investigate, and soon Rafferty and O’Donnell’s spirited sister Addie are up to their eyeballs in corrupt city officials, union organizers, outside agitators, treacherous Pinkerton operators, bribery and extortion cash, dead bodies, and the author’s specialty, a looming disaster. Meanwhile, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are cooling their heels in New York, restricted to telegrams and letters. Having given up any attempt to capture Watson’s authorial voice, Millett (Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery, 2000, etc.) uses instead the unlovely cadences of his journal to record that “H and I have spent the last few hours with SR & GWT, exchanging info & plotting strategy for what H believes will be ‘decisive day.’ ”
It’s not until the second half of this tangled, noisy, forgettable tale that Holmes and Watson turn up, and even then Holmes plays second fiddle to Rafferty. Expect the brawny saloonkeeper to get top billing next time.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-03015-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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