An engaging, contemplative whodunit that advocates for animal intelligence and human compassion.
In this mystery, Canadian detectives investigate the murder of a charismatic woman beloved by people and animals.
In a home on Lake Memphremagog in southern Quebec, 16-year-old Lucas Power wanted to be hypnotized. He enlisted Nicol Fulmar, a beautiful neighbor known for her deep connection to animals and nature, to help him defeat his fear of dark spaces. After the session, Lucas used Nicol’s upstairs washroom. Downstairs, Nicol took a sharp instrument between her shoulder blades and died. Now, Inspector Gabriel Duforêt, from the nearby town of Magog, tries to solve a murder in which the weapon has vanished and a history of orphan abuse looms over the countryside. He’s joined by Lt. Maxine LeBlanc, with whom he interviews Nicol’s neighbors and relations. Gabriel, a recovering alcoholic, must keep calm as he learns about the Cache Mission, an orphanage that not only abused children, but also misrepresented them as disabled to garner better government funding. As the case proceeds, a vibrant portrait emerges of Nicol as a protector of animals and a woman open to romantic entanglements. Numerous locals bear closer scrutiny, including lonely husband and father Wyatt Evans; Nicol’s scornful adoptive mother, Estephania; and Nicol’s potential rival, Naomi Savage. And what of the remarkable crow, cat, and octopus Nicol left behind? Harris uses nostalgia and a powerful understanding of animal minds to fashion this unique mystery. Nicol’s childhood spent exploring nature on the lake exerts a strong emotional pull in flashbacks. In one scene, she cares for a dying mouse, encompassing the narrative’s moral thrust in the line “Every creature, no matter how big or small has the same sized soul.” Mowat the crow and Casanova the octopus are playful creatures with detailed roles to perform. Gabriel, meanwhile, is the consummate gentleman, especially regarding the lovely Maxine. He befriends Father André Barberio, a local Benedictine monk, whose forthcoming nature, mystery buffs will note, stands out in the village’s hushed atmosphere of malice. Overall, the author succeeds in illustrating that human strictures on nature and society sometimes cause more harm than good.
An engaging, contemplative whodunit that advocates for animal intelligence and human compassion.Pub Date: April 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-03-914037-0
Page Count: 168
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.
A luxury liner bound for New York in 1924 becomes the scene of a twisty golden age pastiche.
When an unnamed third-class passenger discovers the body of an elderly man at the bottom of an exterior flight of stairs aboard the Endeavour, Capt. McCrory insists it must be an accident. But James Temple, a Scotland Yard detective who just happens to be aboard, says that no one would have ventured to the outdoor steps in the rain without a coat, so the death should be treated as suspicious. Unable to stop Temple from investigating, McCrory assigns ship’s officer Timothy Birch to accompany him, and Birch promptly becomes the world’s most unwilling Dr. Watson, constantly battling Temple over theories and procedures. Anxious that they have only four days to find a potential killer before the ship docks and lets its 2,000 passengers roam free in New York, he’s especially infuriated at the leisurely pace marked by Temple’s bromide, “Facts before witnesses.” There’s reason to sympathize with Temple, because the suspects in first and second class (the only classes that matter in this ultra-class-conscious world) are cardboard cutouts—the successful banker, his trophy wife, the aspiring artists, the gallery owner—who are much less interesting than the secrets they’re hiding. In his most anachronistic development, author Hindle shows Birch, unlike the imperturbable sidekicks he echoes, sunk in grief over his vanished daughter, Amelia, and his estranged wife, Kate, who left him after Amelia disappeared during one of his ocean voyages. He’d do anything to get his daughter back, he tells Temple, and his determination leads to the biggest surprise of all.
Enough clues, red herrings, and false endings to make readers feel that the Orient Express has put out to sea.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9798217185740
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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