Solid stuff, and though one might wish for more of Dibdin’s facility with language, there’s plenty here to admire from the...
Fans of Michael Dibdin’s Aurelio Zen mysteries will welcome this first mystery from Australian author Browne, whose hero, Inspector Anders of the Rome Police, is equally thoughtful and courageous in his own unorthodox way. His nominal assignment when he’s sent south is to investigate the bombing that took the life of Magistrate Fabri, who was overseeing the study of Judge De Angelis’s assassination. Anders, who lost a leg in a terrorist attack, introduces himself to the local law enforcers, but declines their help and won’t leave his phone number or address with them. Soon he is being followed on foot and by car by persons unknown, although one is surely Detective Matucci, his police liaison, and several others are presumably in the employ of the Mafia. Induced to make serious rather than cursory inquiries by the judge’s passionate widow, Anders, like the judge before him, connects the Summit Insurance crash with Provincial bank president Chiro Rastos, a mafia VIP. Then, again following the judge, he becomes a target as government officials, society icons, and the omnipresent Mafiosi line up against him. Allowing himself to be captured, Anders brings the house down, literally, with an ingenious use of his wooden leg.
Solid stuff, and though one might wish for more of Dibdin’s facility with language, there’s plenty here to admire from the iconoclastic Anders to the Machiavellian twists of Italian politics.Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-27838-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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