A whimsical but slow-moving story that lacks excitement.
In Stahlhut’s mystery, a former CIA agent privately investigates a strange case in which a wealthy woman’s death leaves the future of her vast estate uncertain.
Agatha Christine Bigelow is named after the famous writer of murder mysteries; her mother, Lydia, is an obsessive fan and runs a business taking clients on Christie-themed tours all over the world. Lydia’s terrier, M. Poirot, is even named after Christie’s fictional detective. Agatha recently lost both her jobs—for 25 years she worked for the CIA while, as a cover, she sold yarn all over the world—so she moves back in with her mother and begins a crochet business. However, she’s soon drawn back into the world of covert investigation when wealthy Amelia Dettmer dies; she ran the Quercus Grove Animal Rescue Society and Thrift with zealous devotion. Her will stipulates that her estate should pass to her closest living relative, with the bulk of her fortune going to her rescue society after that, but no one seems to be able to find such an heir. The Baileys, a neighboring family, stand to gain if such a relative can’t be found; they consider the animal rescue a nuisance and want to see its buildings razed. Marcus Hill, the attorney handling Amelia’s estate, hires Agatha to track down any remaining family member, and she encounters all kinds of drama. Along the way, M. Poirot is kidnapped and cut roses are stolen from the cemetery, possibly by “agricultural spies sent by an evil mastermind.” Moreover, Agatha discovers evidence that the Baileys are hiding a terrible secret in connection with Amelia’s unsettled estate.
The entire novel has a sweetly cute feel to it: a modern mystery inspired by works of its forbears, including Christie and the pseudonymous Carolyn Keene of Nancy Drew fame. Indeed, the narrative is riddled with homages, which should be a delight to fans of the aforementioned authors and the cozy mystery genre in general. Also, one can’t help but appreciate the quirkiness of the tale; Agatha is an eccentric heroine, astute and relentless, but also a socially awkward 50-something woman who’s forced to reinvent herself quite suddenly. However, the plot moves at a frustratingly unhurried pace—so slow, in fact, that the book starts to feel lengthy despite its relative brevity. Also, the author’s writing style is excessively earnest, as if the aim is to reach an adolescent audience. For example, a librarian overhears Mrs. Bailey instruct her daughter, Lynette: “We’ll get that eyesore razed as soon as the will is executed—and it’s your job to see to it a living relation isn’t found!” Over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that the problem isn’t merely a matter of style; one grows quickly bored by heavy-handed clues, and the novel’s conclusion, in its general outline, precludes any suspense. For all its lightsomeness, it’s ultimately a tedious affair—a mystery drama that isn’t very mysterious or dramatic.
A whimsical but slow-moving story that lacks excitement.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2023
ISBN: 978-1587750366
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Coyote Arts
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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