A compelling tale of revolutionary times with charming main characters.
A romance-tinged espionage adventure set during the American Revolutionary War.
Philip Parcell was spying for England before he realized that he could make more money selling the names of his fellow spies to Gen. George Washington of the colonial army. Caught by British soldiers in the middle of this endeavor, Philip dies aboard the British ship Jersey, but not before he beseeches fellow prisoner Daniel Alloway to locate Philip’s wife, Becca, and the list of spies’ names. Daniel cleverly escapes the Jersey and heads to Morristown, New Jersey, in search of Becca—more out of a desire for money than any moral obligation. Becca, meanwhile, is living with her mother-in-law, Lady Augusta, when rumors that she ratted out her husband begin to spread through town. This, in turn, leads Washington to ask her to spy for him in New York in exchange for protection. Soon, Daniel agrees to help under the condition that he receive free passage to make “a fresh start somewhere far from here.” Becca and Daniel travel to New York City, where they resume their search for the list—and maybe find some romance along the way; they’re accompanied by Lady Augusta and Annie, the Parcells’ servant. In her debut novel, Becker’s shining prose (“The skulls of the ship’s dead lined the beaches as thick as pumpkins in an autumn field”) pairs well with historical details, such as how New York City became an epicenter for Loyalists due to its British occupation. Familiar figures, such as Washington and Alexander Hamilton, appear alongside fictional players. The relationship between Daniel and Becca has plenty of charm; Becca is shown to be a fierce, smart, and often brave woman who never fit into the society into which she married, while Daniel is painted as clever and humorous even as he grapples with a traumatic past. Becker’s secondary characters are also distinctively portrayed, such as gang leader John Mason, who has ears “shaped like pitcher handles.” Overall, Becker’s thrilling, romantic story will appeal to lovers of early American history.
A compelling tale of revolutionary times with charming main characters.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-953789-28-0
Page Count: 308
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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