The clash between an investigator and a reporter hampers a gritty kidnapping case.
Karen Lowe is in full hysterics when police respond to a call that reports her crying and screaming on a Birmingham road. The teenager is barely able to explain to DCI Sarah Quinn that Evie, her 6-month-old daughter, has just been abducted. Karen is convinced that she’ll never see Evie again, but Quinn is certain she can find Evie if only Karen will open up. Not noted for her bedside manner, Quinn can’t even get the father’s name out of Karen. The hard, jaded Quinn soon finds she also can’t rely on her department for reliable backup since it seems clear there’s a press leak to Sarah’s nemesis, determined, underhanded reporter Caroline King. While King will stop at nothing to get the scoop, her tactics may be getting in the way of the formal investigation, inciting even more of Quinn’s ire. The two have a murky past that neither has fully confronted, but their separate investigations may be permanently stalled unless they can somehow collaborate. Something’s got to give, but neither woman wants to be the one to give it, until it becomes clear there may be more lives at stake. This series debut from the chronicler of DS Bev Morriss (Death Line, 2010, etc.) features characters that are tough to relate to but a grim plot that may appeal.
Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-78029-000-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Creme de la Crime
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
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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