A tale of a kidnapping investigation whose awkward execution may leave mystery fans cold.
A detective bungles a missing-person case in Griffin’s crime novella.
It’s 2024, and Morgan’s Landing is a small New England town with closeknit families, well-behaved teenagers, and law-abiding adults. One morning, Julie Morgan, the daughter of a prominent local family, leaves for school but never arrives at her destination. Police Det. Jim Brady delves into why Julie disappeared and who might be responsible. Unreliable witnesses direct him to two suspects: Bear Wayans, a fired school janitor who had been seen loitering outside the school the day before Julie’s disappearance, and Raymond Ochner, a registered sex offender and pedophile. Before long, however, Jim set his sights on another possibility: the young, handsome David Hartwell, one of Julie’s teachers featured in her diary. Despite Jim’s best efforts, though, he can’t solve the case, and soon his wife, suffering from postpartum depression, accuses their teenage son, Colin, of the crime—an awkward situation that may give Jim the key to solving the mystery. Griffin’s tale is competently plotted, with a wide variety of characters. However, fans of procedurals will take exception to the glaring inaccuracies concerning police procedure; for example, it takes too long for the police department to send out an Amber Alert, and Jim handcuffs Mr. Hartwell, without provocation, just to bring him in for questioning. Interjections from a major character’s perspective throughout the text are distracting, and the fact that Hartwell sports a classic 1970s style seems out of place in a story set in the 2020s. Also, Jim’s reasoning is often unclear, leaving readers to wonder if he’s a terrible detective or just an underdeveloped character.
A tale of a kidnapping investigation whose awkward execution may leave mystery fans cold.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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