Even fans of the series are likely to be surprised when the curtain finally falls.
Commissario Ricciardi faces murder among a theatrical troupe whose members are just as devious as he is.
No one, least of all himself, disputes the fact that fading theater star Michelangelo Gelmi ended the second evening show of the revue at the Teatro Splendor by shooting his co-star and wife, Fedora Marra. This time, however, the beloved star didn’t rise for her curtain call because someone had substituted live ammunition for the blanks with which Gelmi had shot her repeatedly in the run-up to Christmas 1933. Gelmi swears he never would have killed the love of his life intentionally; Erminia Pacelli, the dresser for the Teatro Splendor, insists that she was stationed outside the door of Gelmi’s dressing room before the performance began and saw no one enter. It’s up to Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi and his sidekick, Brigadier Raffaele Maione, a conscientious detective but a terrible driver, to sort out the case. Readers who know more than they do may be distracted by the problems faced by Livia Vezzi, a widow who’s under pressure to get very, very close to Maj. Manfred von Brauchitsch, a visiting German officer whose advances Enrica Colombo has rejected because she’s in love with Ricciardi, and by Lina Scuotto, a prostitute who’s been beaten nearly to death by someone whose identity nearly everyone her favorite client, medical examiner Dr. Bruno Modo, talks to seems to know but won’t reveal. Ricciardi’s superior, who can’t see why he hasn’t arrested Gelmi, keeps him on a short leash. Fortunately, as Maione reflects, there’s still time to investigate because “nobody’s going to kill anyone between Christmas and New Year’s Day.”
Even fans of the series are likely to be surprised when the curtain finally falls.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-60945-727-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: World Noir
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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