As in Cat out of Hell (2015), Truss piles up ingenious plot twists, preposterous coincidences, snarky asides, and characters...
The shooting of an acerbic reviewer during the premiere of a play at the Theatre Royal opens endless avenues of investigation for the incompetents of the Brighton Constabulary in this effervescent farce.
Six years after the Middle Street Massacre wiped out all 45 members of the Giovedi crime family and its rival gang, Fat Victor’s Casino Boys, DI Geoffrey Steine, who’d arrived from the City of London Police just in time to hear the news that most of the town’s leading criminals had killed each other, is still convinced that there’s no crime in Brighton and that he’s the reason why. The situation changes with a bang when an unknown member of the audience interrupts the opening night of Jack Braithwaite’s play A Shilling in the Meter to keep exacting critic A.S. Crystal, a “Robespierre with BO,” from filing his scathing notice by shooting him where he sits as he’s calling out, “Tell Inspector Steine from me he’s even more of a fool—.” The person to whom Crystal addresses this unfinished injunction is PC Peregrine Twitten, a dewy-eyed smarty-pants who’s rounding out his very first day on the job at Brighton by attending the play in the seat next to Crystal after having been dismissed from several earlier positions by bosses who thought him too clever, too clueless, or both. So although the officers nominally in charge of the case are Steine and Sgt. Jim Brunswick, Twitten is convinced that only he can solve a case whose body count rapidly rises. He turns out to be right, though not at all with the results he expected.
As in Cat out of Hell (2015), Truss piles up ingenious plot twists, preposterous coincidences, snarky asides, and characters out of P.G. Wodehouse, this time replacing her murderous felines with a setup out of the genre’s golden age. Readers who can suspend their disbelief are in for quite a workout.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63557-055-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
