Plenty of Roaring ’20s ambience and enough red herrings to keep things mysterious.
A talented investigator and a medium who occasionally hits the mark are involved in yet another murder case.
It's 1924, and life hasn’t been easy for Maddie Pastore. Fleeing an abusive family, she met and married Tommy Pastore, whose job driving a truck for the Chicago mob got him killed, leaving her and baby Tommy penniless. A chance meeting with the mother of a school friend who makes a living as medium Madame Carlotta Romany gives Maddie a new lease on life. When she runs into singer Sophie Dale, she recognizes her as the sister she hasn’t seen for many years. A few days later, Sophie’s husband, Sebastian Dale, calls to tell Maddie that Sophie’s been arrested for murder. Maddie’s friendship with Det. O’Rourke gets her in to see Sophie, who claims that during a big party where she was singing for wealthy Nick Bardo, she felt unwell and passed out in a bedroom, where she was later found holding a bloody candlestick with Bardo’s body on the floor. Sophie remembers nothing, and although Maddie is sure she’s innocent, she knows it won’t be easy to prove it. Maddie’s prodigious skills at digging up facts encourage her to investigate Bardo’s feuding family and his ties to the mob. She gets a hand from well-known police detective Alice Clement, who has a special interest in helping women. But Maddie has to keep Alice from learning that she works for a medium and fend off rival mobs’ efforts to get her to set up Al Capone for a hit. Walking a dangerous path, she still manages to uncover the truth.
Plenty of Roaring ’20s ambience and enough red herrings to keep things mysterious.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-44830-684-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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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