Strong female protagonists and an intelligent, creepy setup make this mystery installment memorable.
A car crash raises terrifying implications in the latest installment of the Josie Quinn mystery series.
Despite living in a small city in Central Pennsylvania, Det. Josie Quinn can’t seem to even take a day off without a gruesome crime scene needing her attention. She and her husband, Noah, a fellow detective, are hoping to adopt and trying to ready the house for a home visit from an adoption agency when Josie gets called in to the scene of an unusual car wreck. Josie quickly sees something even more gruesome than a head-on collision—evidence that the two women in the mangled car were involved in an intense, bloody struggle before the accident. The driver is barely clinging to life, and the other woman has a defensive stab wound and a knife stuck in her abdomen. The only clue to what happened to the women is a single piece of paper, a child’s drawing with the chilling word “HELP” scribbled on the back. When the driver, Mira Summers, wakes up, all she can remember is riding horses at the Tranquil Trails stables that morning, but she has no recollection of the attack or the Jane Doe riding in her car. With the help of her trusted colleague, Gretchen Palmer, Josie quickly discovers that the family running Tranquil Trails has anything but tranquil secrets; the owner warns them that she believes her disturbed brother-in-law may have been capable of such an attack. At the same time, Josie begins to question whether Mira’s selective amnesia is a ruse to cover up vital information. As both detectives race against time to piece together what happened and to save a child who may be in grave danger, they are drawn into a complex family drama that offers no simple answers.
Building on previous episodes in the series, Regan’s Josie Quinn remains a remarkable, strong protagonist. (At the site of the particularly grisly car wreck scene, Josie showcases her ability to squash visceral reactions in favor of getting her job done, remarking only, “It’s not what I expected.”) Josie’s husband, Noah, is again a reliable partner. But the more exciting pair is Josie and Gretchen. Through them, Regan creates a formidable duo that won’t take any nonsense as they rush to save a young child in danger. As they stumble deeper into an intricate family drama, Regan also smartly turns her lead character’s anxieties about adoption and parenthood into concrete aspects of the case she is trying to solve. Astute mystery readers may see where the investigation is going from a mile away, but there are plenty of suspenseful surprises and action-packed sequences before the final reveals. Also adding to the tension are some chilling scenes showing the young child in question, who’s watching their captor and waiting for rescue. “It reminds me of the blood,” the child thinks, seeing people move in a shadowy room, “Whose blood?The whisper is back.” It’s a chilling and effective addition to help keep this twisted mystery moving.
Strong female protagonists and an intelligent, creepy setup make this mystery installment memorable.Pub Date: May 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781835254721
Page Count: 348
Publisher: Bookouture
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 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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