A plot as well-thumbed as the heroine’s volumes and as likely to bring joy to true fans.
A North Carolina bookshop becomes a magnet for murder.
Having cleared her name in the killing of her uncle, Paul Baxter, in For Whom the Book Tolls (2020), Jenna Quinn turns her attention to his shop, which she of course has inherited. First the name. To her ear, “Baxter’s Book Emporium” lacks pizzazz. So she rechristens Hokes Folly’s premier source of antique books “Twice Upon a Time.” Then the clientele. She invites the cream of local society to her grand reopening party, hoping to entice them with her rare and well-preserved wares. Of course many of Hokes Folly's glitterati turn out to be pains in the parchment. Snooty Selina March makes snide comments about the food and tosses the fragile merchandise on the floor. Linus Talbot insists that the invitation’s plus-one entitles him to bring his dog, Eddy, decked out in a bow tie that matches his own. Thank goodness the crowd includes handsome Detective Keith Logan. Not only does Jenna take his presence as a sign that their budding romance is going well, but she’s able to call on his professional skills when Talbot turns up dead in the parking lot. Still, much as she’d like to sit back and wait for the police to solve the crime, Jenna can’t—not after a local reporter runs a story pointing out that this is now the third death tied to her shop. So along with her store manager, Mason Craig, and her best friend, Rita Wallace, she does what any small-town shopkeeper would do: hunts down the killer on her own.
A plot as well-thumbed as the heroine’s volumes and as likely to bring joy to true fans.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64385-826-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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
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