Budewitz’s finely drawn characters, sharp ear for dialogue, and well-paced puzzle make Jewel Bay a destination for every...
A Montana shop owner copes handily with all the challenges of the holiday season.
Jewel Bay has escaped the irrelevance that plagues many rural towns in America’s heartland by creating a rustic shoppers’ paradise in its picturesque center. And the spirit of cooperation among the crafters and artisans who run the local shops is never stronger than during the Christmas season, when shopkeepers help each other decorate their doors and self-appointed elves string lights and decorate the streets in between. So it’s not surprising that Erin Murphy (Treble at the Jam Fest, 2017, etc.), owner of the venerable Murphy’s Glacier Mercantile, has chosen Christmas Eve for her upcoming wedding to longtime beau Adam Zimmerman. But the season’s shine dims when Merrily, the black sheep of the Thornton clan, returns hoping to make a fresh start. Her parents, Walt and Taya, have other ideas and tell their daughter to get lost. Erin tries to befriend the dejected Merrily and feels rebuffed when she fails to turn up at Erin’s annual cookie exchange. But Merrily isn’t snubbing Erin. She’s dead, as her childhood friend Greg Taylor learns when he finds her corpse at an old schoolhouse on her parents’ property. Busy as she is, Erin can’t help nosing around to figure out what Grinch would spoil the spirit of the season by strangling a repentant sinner with a string of holiday lights.
Budewitz’s finely drawn characters, sharp ear for dialogue, and well-paced puzzle make Jewel Bay a destination for every cozy fan.Pub Date: June 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7387-5241-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
One protest from an outraged innocent says it all: “This is America. This is Wyoming.”
Once again, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett gets mixed up in a killing whose principal suspect is his old friend Nate Romanowski, whose attempts to live off the grid keep breaking down in a series of felony charges.
If Judge Hewitt hadn’t bent over to pick up a spoon that had fallen from his dinner table, the sniper set up nearly a mile from his house in the gated community of the Eagle Mountain Club would have ended his life. As it was, the victim was Sue Hewitt, leaving the judge alive and free to rail and threaten anyone he suspected of the shooting. Incoming Twelve Sleep County Sheriff Brendan Kapelow’s interest in using the case to promote his political ambitions and the judge’s inability to see further than his nose make them the perfect targets for a frame-up of Nate, who just wants to be left alone in the middle of nowhere to train his falcons and help his bride, Liv Brannon, raise their baby, Kestrel. Nor are the sniper, the sheriff, and the judge Nate’s only enemies. Orlando Panfile has been sent to Wyoming by the Sinaloan drug cartel to avenge the deaths of the four assassins whose careers Nate and Joe ended last time out (Wolf Pack, 2019). So it’s up to Joe, with some timely data from his librarian wife, Marybeth, to hire a lawyer for Nate, make sure he doesn’t bust out of jail before his trial, identify the real sniper, who continues to take an active role in the proceedings, and somehow protect him from a killer who regards Nate’s arrest as an unwelcome complication. That’s quite a tall order for someone who can’t shoot straight, who keeps wrecking his state-issued vehicles, and whose appalling mother-in-law, Missy Vankeuren Hand, has returned from her latest European jaunt to suck up all the oxygen in Twelve Sleep County to hustle some illegal drugs for her cancer-stricken sixth husband. But fans of this outstanding series will know better than to place their money against Joe.
One protest from an outraged innocent says it all: “This is America. This is Wyoming.”Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53823-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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