Lippman’s slender tale, serialized previously in the New York Times Magazine, brings back her feisty star detective at her...
Big changes come in small packages for a Baltimore private eye sidelined by an unplanned pregnancy.
Tess Monaghan (I’d Know You Anywhere, 2010, etc.) never anticipated being pregnant, much less being confined to bed rest by pre-eclampsia. But as she sits on her sun porch wondering whether her maternal instincts will ever kick in, her appetite for sleuthing continues full blast. She sees a young woman and a dog clad in matching fashion-forward green slickers walking in Stony Run. After several days, the woman disappears, and her abandoned Italian greyhound is leaving messes in Tess’s living room. Tess traces the dog’s owner, Don Epstein, who first says his wife is away on business, but later confesses that Carole just up and left him. Not that Epstein’s track record with women is anything to write home about: His first wife Mary was shot in an attempted carjacking, and his second wife Annette died of a hospital-contracted staph infection. In between Mary and Annette, Epstein’s girlfriend, Danielle Messinger, broke her neck falling down a flight of stairs—an accident Carole Epstein knows about full well, since Danielle was Carole’s sister. With a nod to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Tess uses her confinement as an excuse to exercise her ingenuity in trying to prove that a self-proclaimed abandoned husband is really a cold-blooded killer.
Lippman’s slender tale, serialized previously in the New York Times Magazine, brings back her feisty star detective at her most belligerent, most vulnerable and perhaps most appealing.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-193836-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
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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