Toussaint takes a break from her Cleopatra Jones series (Dime if I Know, 2013, etc.) for a brisk plunge into the paranormal.
A landscaper uses her psychic powers to solve murders old and new.
Baxley Powell is desperate to finish her latest job. Carolina Byrd won’t pay her a cent until Mallow Plantation’s grounds are completely planted, and Baxley needs the money to keep herself and her daughter, Larissa, afloat, since the Army won’t concede that her MIA husband is dead and won’t pay death benefits. So the last thing she wants is to unearth an ancient skeleton right where she’s supposed to plant a weeping cherry tree. The unfortunate discovery brings her job to a grinding halt as Sheriff Wayne Thompson sends deputies Virg and Ronnie to investigate. Even Bo Seavey, the county’s lecherous coroner, can see that the folks Baxley unearthed died a long time ago. But that news just brings Running Wolf and his wife, Gentle Dove, to the site claiming the remains must be part of a First Nation burial site, so Baxley still can’t get back to work. Since touching the skull triggered visions of a family of white settlers, Baxley knows the remains aren’t Native American—so she sneaks back onto Mallow to try to plant apodocarpus. This time, the body she unearths is much more recent. Her latest find sets off visions of a beautiful young woman named Lisa who sits weeping for her lover, Jay, and the baby born of their illicit affair. Finding the third side to the triangle may help Baxley convince Wayne to hire her as a police consultant. As Baxley moves closer to taking over her father’s role as county dreamwalker, her waking life is threatened by a murderer who’d prefer not to be caught.
Toussaint takes a break from her Cleopatra Jones series (Dime if I Know, 2013, etc.) for a brisk plunge into the paranormal.Pub Date: April 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2813-4
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.
Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).
After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1134-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An expert juggling act that ends with not one but two intercut trials. More, please.
His Clifton Chronicles (This Was a Man, 2017, etc.) complete, the indefatigable Archer launches a new series that follows a well-born police officer from his first assignment to (spoiler alert) his appointment as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police some volumes down the road.
William Warwick may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’s done everything he can to declare his independence from his father, Sir Julian Warwick QC. When William, fresh out of King’s College with a degree in art history, announces his intention to enroll in Hendon Police College, his father realizes that he’ll have to count on William’s older sister, Grace, to carry on the family’s tradition in Her Majesty’s courts. Instead, guileless William patrols the streets of Lambeth until a chance remark lands him on DCI Bruce Lamont’s Art and Antiques unit under the watchful eye of Cmdr. Jack Hawksby. No fewer than four cases await his attention: the forger who signs first editions with the names of their famous authors; a series of even more accomplished forgeries of old masters paintings; a well-organized series of thefts of artworks by a gang whose leader prefers selling them back to the companies who’ve insured them and often don’t even report the thefts to the police; and a mysterious series of purchases of century-old silver by one Kevin Carter. His investigations take William across the path, and then into the bed, of Beth Rainsford, a research assistant at the Fitzmolean gallery, still reeling seven years after a priceless Rembrandt was stolen from its collection, most likely by landowner and self-styled farmer Miles Faulkner. As if to prevent William from getting even a moment’s sleep in between rounds of detection and decorous coupling, Beth unwillingly drags William into a fifth case, a 2-year-old murder whose verdict she has every reason to doubt. One of these cases will bring William up against Grace, whose withering cross-examination of him on the witness stand is a special highlight.
An expert juggling act that ends with not one but two intercut trials. More, please.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20076-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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