Meanders from brothels to copper markets to public baths and poetry readings, each rife with all the gossip, rumor, deceit...
Constantinople intrigue during the reign of Justinian and Theodora.
Among the mosaics on the walls of the palace lodgings where John the Lord Chamberlain has lived for the past ten years, the portrait of a young girl he calls Zoe especially intrigues him. He often speaks to it, reasons with it, confides in it. So when he’s walking in a courtyard outside the palace and a young woman who looks like a grown-up version of Zoe whispers that she must meet him the next night, he agrees. But at the rendezvous he finds her strangled body, slathered in red dye that almost eclipses a telltale tattoo. Soon John is questioning the artist who rendered the mosaic for the lodging’s former residents, the tax collector Glykos, his wife and his daughter Agnes. Was Zoe really Agnes? The byzantine tale wends past a purveyor of antiquities, Glykos’ brother the sausage maker, various seditious groups and a passel of actresses-cum-prostitutes. Did Agnes/Zoe’s death stem from an attempt to depose Justinian? Darker forces lead to another murder and spawn rumors of an illegitimate child borne by Theodora. Plotters are everywhere. Ditto assailants. And there will be yet another deception before John understands the Zoe/Agnes scenario.
Meanders from brothels to copper markets to public baths and poetry readings, each rife with all the gossip, rumor, deceit and lewdness you’d expect from one of the Lord Chamberlain’s cases (Six for Gold, 2005, etc.).Pub Date: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59058-489-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008
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
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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