A familiar but action-packed whodunit.
A bar owner takes on the role of detective in the first installment of Kirsch’s (The Big Job, 2018, etc.) new mystery series.
Janet Black is the proprietor of a friendly neighborhood bar in Knoxville, Tennessee, called the Spot. She loves the place, but she finds that managing it presents some challenges; for example, it appears that one of her employees has been stealing from the register, and she’s focused on finding the culprit. Then one day, she discovers a dead body behind the bar. It’s Ike Freeman, a formerly troublesome regular. The police attempt to pin the murder on Janet’s sexy boyfriend, Jason, a security expert with a juvenile criminal record for computer hacking. To clear his name, Janet decides to do a little digging on her own. It also turns out that Ike had a rough past in which he left a trail of destruction. Then one of Janet’s employees, who likely has knowledge of the crime, disappears—and so does Jason. She later finds evidence of police corruption, and when another body turns up in the bar, Janet escalates the investigation further; she eventually gets all the suspects together in one room—a move reminiscent of Agatha’s Christie’s legendary detective Hercule Poirot. Kirsch’s witty whodunit includes plenty of red herrings and a long list of potential suspects with plausible reasons to commit murder. The protagonist, a minor character from the author’s Stella Reynolds series, is a little rough around the edges, but readers will find her to be likable enough to carry her own story. She’s sharp, she swears, and she’s not always right, but she does everything with an appealing sense of humor. This novel doesn’t break any new ground; it’s a light, cozy mystery with a charismatic female lead and a quirky cast of characters, including a handsome love interest in the background. However, it’s excellent escapist entertainment.
A familiar but action-packed whodunit.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9969350-8-1
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Sunnyside Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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