The latest from veteran Allin (Contingency Plan, 2012, etc.) is a mediocre mystery whose historical information makes it...
It's 1896 in British Columbia, and a young police officer is working a case that’s deeply personal to him.
Called to a murder scene in his hometown of Victoria, DS Edwin DesRosiers discovers the body of his very first lover, Victoria Crosse, apparently strangled with a black stocking. Two prostitutes have recently been killed in a similar manner, but Edwin doesn’t think Vicky’s death fits the pattern. A strange tattoo found on her back offers a clue to his assistant, Reggie Thirkstan, the indolent son of a wealthy family passing time until he marries. Vicky had been a model for Edwin’s artist mother, Naomi, who’s painted nude portraits to help support the two of them since the death of his lawyer father. Naomi has an opium habit and relies for her supply on their servant, Wong, whose disappearance is another case for Edwin, along with that of a young servant girl who’s vanished. Meanwhile, Edwin can thank Reggie for an introduction to the lovely and adventurous Emily Carr, who may not mind that Edwin is a policeman with Jewish/Catholic roots and slim means. Edwin’s search into Vicky’s past to see if something she was involved in since they last met led to her death yields some very surprising results.
The latest from veteran Allin (Contingency Plan, 2012, etc.) is a mediocre mystery whose historical information makes it worth reading.Pub Date: Dec. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4328-3057-1
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.
A plucky group of early-20th-century detectives (Murder on Trinity Place, 2019, etc.) takes on the Black Hand.
The leads include Frank Malloy and Gino Donatelli, former police officers who started a detective agency after an unexpected legacy made Malloy a wealthy man; Malloy’s wife, Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy society family who runs a maternity clinic for the poor; and their nanny, Maeve, a budding sleuth who works in Malloy’s office. All of them leap to attention when Gino’s sister-in-law Teodora reports that Jane Harding, a worker at the settlement house where Teo volunteers, has been kidnapped by the Black Hand, who are notorious for abducting the wives and children of anyone who can afford to pay ransom. The New York Police Department is corrupt, and the local Italian immigrants never report crimes. Mr. McWilliam, who runs the settlement house, had asked Jane to marry him, but she’d asked him to allow her to experience more of the single life before deciding. Seeking clues, Sarah visits Mrs. Cassidi, an earlier kidnapping victim who’s refused to talk to anyone, in hopes that her nursing experience and sympathetic manner will get results. Mrs. Cassidi admits to being raped but knows little about where she was held captive, a quiet place in a house where she could hear children. Soon after Nunzio Esposito, a leader of the Black Hand, tells Malloy that no one’s been taken from the settlement house, Jane suddenly reappears but refuses to discuss where she’s been. Lisa Prince, Jane’s well-to-do cousin, reluctantly agrees to take her in even though Jane’s jealous of her wealth and can be unpleasant to deal with. When Esposito’s found murdered in a flat he rented for his mistress, Gino, who’s just arrived on the scene, is arrested. Now the clever sleuths must solve both the murder and the abductions to clear Gino’s name.
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0574-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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
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