An overstuffed but breezy family drama that plays out its familiar narrative beats right on time.
A British journalist and a Canadian carpenter discover the murky union between their parents during the quest to solve an old mystery.
Here’s a cultural stew for you: a novel by bestselling French novelist Levy (Hope, 2016, etc.) with a translation by Wasserman, a former film professional, starring two charming leads saddled with Beatles-esque names, set largely in the cinematically dreary city of Baltimore, Maryland. That’s the scene for Levy’s sprawling familial saga that spans three generations and time periods and leaps between points of view with abandon. Eleanor-Rigby “Elby” Donovan is a journalist for National Geographic, still mourning the loss of her mother, who recently passed away, and tending to her idiosyncratic father and a pair of odd-duck siblings. Her proclamation early in the book is prescient: “The strange part is that it took traveling to the ends of the earth for me to realize that what I was looking for was right there in front of me the whole time. All I had to do was open my eyes and start noticing the wonder of the world outside my front door.” Her adventure begins when she receives an anonymous letter hinting of secrets in her mother’s past and pointing her toward clues to her mum’s true nature. Simultaneously, in Quebec, handsome young carpenter George-Harrison Collins receives a similar letter hinting at the truth about the father he never knew. Between his characters' present-day meet-cute introduction and their discovery of an eccentric professor who holds the answers to their familial drama, Levy inserts a wartime story set in 1944 about a wealthy Maryland family and another sequence set in 1980 that explores the mysterious circumstances binding Elby's and George-Harrison’s families together. By modern standards, it sets a rather frothy, picaresque tone for a mystery novel, but readers looking for something light will find it an amusing indulgence.
An overstuffed but breezy family drama that plays out its familiar narrative beats right on time.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5039-5912-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.
An accountant and her lawyer husband must revisit his high school days in order to solve a murder.
Lee Woodyard is no fan of the scheme her husband, Joe, and her uncle, Hogan Jones, the local police chief, hatch to buy the Bailey house next door and flip it. But even though she’d rather be at her job as business manager at her aunt’s chocolate specialty shop (The Chocolate Bunny Brouhaha, 2016, etc.), she agrees to meet with the plumber for an estimate—a meeting that turns dangerous when plumber Digger Brown finds a bundle of rags in the cellar. When he drops them, a gun hidden in the bundle goes off, sending a bullet whizzing past Lee. No one seems to know where the old fashioned six-shooter came from, but the accident recalls a past incident in which the Sharks, a group of high school boys that included Brad Davis, Chip Brown, Sharpy Brock, Tad Bailey, and Spud Dirk, pulled a prank that could have been deadly. Years ago, when several Sharks pretended as a joke to rob a convenience store in which Brad was working, Brad pulled a real gun and fired but hit nothing more vital than the Frozen Rainbow Machine. Now Brad’s the president of the VanHorn–Davis Foundation, whose charitable donations underwrite many improvements to the Michigan lakeside town of Warner Pier. When Lee accompanies Hogan to the Bailey house to show him where the gun was, they find more than they bargained for—Spud’s corpse in a cupboard. Although Hogan’s the police chief, he must stay out of the investigation because Spud had been competing with him to buy the Bailey house. So Lee, who’d prefer to stick to chocolates, is forced to join Joe in detective work.
A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-10000-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Joe’s fifth case is his best balanced, most deeply felt and most mystifying to date: an absolute must.
Crime-fighting Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett outdoes himself during a temporary transfer from sleepy Saddlestring to fashionable Jackson Hole.
Will Jensen, the Jackson game warden, was a great guy and a model warden, but once his wife left him six months ago, he spiraled into madness and suicide, and now Joe’s been called to replace him. The transition is anything but smooth. There’s no question of Joe’s family coming with him, so he’s reduced to hoping he can get a signal for the cell-phone calls he squeezes into his busy schedule. En route to his new posting, Joe has to pursue a marauding grizzly. He arrives to meet a formidable series of challenges. Cantankerous outfitter Smoke Van Horn wants to go on attracting elk with illegal salt licks without the new warden’s interference. Animal Liberation Network activist Pi Stevenson wants him to publicize her cause and adopt a vegan diet. Developer Don Ennis wants to open a housing development for millionaires who like their meat free of additives. Ennis’s trophy wife Stella simply wants Joe—and he wants her back. As he wrestles with these demands, and with a supervisor riled over Joe’s track record of destroying government property in pursuit of bad guys (Trophy Hunt, 2004, etc.), Joe slowly becomes convinced that Will did not kill himself.
Joe’s fifth case is his best balanced, most deeply felt and most mystifying to date: an absolute must.Pub Date: May 5, 2005
ISBN: 0-399-15291-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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