This tale offers a promising foundation for a series featuring a strong, complicated investigator.
A battered ex-cop seeking a new life runs smack into his past in this philosophical thriller.
In this series opener, Buchanan introduces readers to former cop Sean “Mick” McPherson, still recovering from a past trauma. His partner, Sam, was killed by a sniper in an ambush. But Sam may have been the lucky one. In the car crash following the death of Sam, who was driving, Mick was left temporarily paralyzed. While he regained mobility, he has been wracked by survivor’s guilt for the past five years. That’s why he retired and has been working at the Pines & Quill writers retreat, run by his older sister, Libby, and her husband, Niall MacCullough. This month’s group of writers includes psychic Cynthia Winters; bitter, divorced Fran Davies; wheelchair-bound potter Emma Benton; and standoffish Jason Hughes. Something changes in Mick when he meets Emma. She finds herself falling for him as well. But Mick doesn’t realize that he has a tie to Jason, a serial killer who comes to the retreat with revenge in mind. Cynthia picks up on Jason’s malice; fearing her abilities, he decides to kill her. But resident dog Hemingway comes to her rescue. After narrowly avoiding death, Jason decides to abduct Emma and use her as bait to lure Mick. Then it’s a race for Mick to rescue Emma in time. Buchanan, a retired holistic health practitioner and life coach and the author of The Business of Being (2018), has made a strong transition from nonfiction to fiction with her first novel. Yes, her former jobs leak through with mentions of therapeutic methods. But that truly doesn’t affect the narrative. The author has created a stable of likable, well-rounded characters, starting with the damaged Mick. Especially winning is Irish wolfhound Hemingway, who speaks volumes without saying a word. Jason is an unhinged, single-dimensional loon, to use a nonpsychological term, and is easy to root against. Buchanan’s narrative is well paced, flying right along. But the book ends abruptly, with the author hanging on to certain elements, such as Jason’s accomplice, for use in the series’ sequel. This leaves the volume with a slightly unfinished feel. Still, overall, the author has delivered an exciting beginning to an intriguing series.
This tale offers a promising foundation for a series featuring a strong, complicated investigator.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68463-071-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This book and its author are cleverer than you and want you to know it.
In this mystery, the narrator constantly adds commentary on how the story is constructed.
In 1929, during the golden age of mysteries, a (real-life) writer named Ronald Knox published the “10 Commandments of Detective Fiction,” 10 rules that mystery writers should obey in order to “play fair.” When faced with his own mystery story, our narrator, an author named Ernest Cunningham who "write[s] books about how to write books," feels like he must follow these rules himself. The story seemingly begins on the night his brother Michael calls to ask him to help bury a body—and shows up with the body and a bag containing $267,000. Fast-forward three years, and Ernie’s family has gathered at a ski resort to celebrate Michael’s release from prison. The family dynamics are, to put it lightly, complicated—and that’s before a man shows up dead in the snow and Michael arrives with a coffin in a truck. When the local cop arrests Michael for the murder, things get even more complicated: There are more deaths; Michael tells a story about a coverup involving their father, who was part of a gang called the Sabers; and Ernie still has (most of) the money and isn’t sure whom to trust or what to do with it. Eventually, Ernie puts all the pieces together and gathers the (remaining) family members and various extras for the great denouement. As the plot develops, it becomes clear that there’s a pretty interesting mystery at the heart of this novel, but Stevenson’s postmodern style has Ernie constantly breaking the fourth wall to explain how the structure of his story meets the criteria for a successful detective story. Some readers are drawn to mysteries because they love the formula and logic—this one’s for them. If you like the slow, sometimes-creepy, sometimes-comforting unspooling of a good mystery, it might not be your cup of tea—though the ending, to be fair, is still something of a surprise.
This book and its author are cleverer than you and want you to know it.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-327902-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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