Interesting new characters will lure franchise fans to this otherwise insipid entry.
A perfect Cotswold spring finds irascible closet romantic Agatha Raisin in the doldrums, in need of a cuddle and a nice mystery to perk her up.
On the advice of the vicar’s wife, Agatha (The Deadly Dance, 2004, etc.) takes on Phil Witherspoon, 76, as a photographer. And she hires her secretary’s nephew Harry Beam, a bright lad on his gap year from university, to find the missing pets her detective agency has mostly dealt with lately. Although Agatha hates divorce cases and thinks Robert Smedley an obnoxious bully, the £1,000 plus expenses he offers to find his errant wife overcome her scruples. Meanwhile, she and Phil go to work on the case of a missing teenager whose body they soon find. When Smedley is poisoned in his factory office, Agatha discovers that he’d been having an affair with Joyce, his secretary. Wait, there’s more: The missing teenager had been making porn tapes for her secret fiancé, who worked for Smedley and was also carrying on with Joyce. The cases, which seem so remote from one another, naturally end up intertwined. In the end, Harry proves his worth, Phil shows a flair for detection, former employee Patrick Mulligan returns to the fold and, despite a distinct lack of warmth from the police, they manage to sort it all out.
Interesting new characters will lure franchise fans to this otherwise insipid entry.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-30448-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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
As usual, Coben piles on the plot twists, false leads, violent set pieces and climactic surprises with the unfocused...
After six years of spinning jaw-dropping stand-alone thrillers, Coben brings back his sports agent—make that everything agent—Myron Bolitar (Darkest Fear, 2000, etc.) for an encore.
Overhearing high-school senior Erin Wilder, his current ladylove’s daughter, sharing confidences with her friend Aimee Biel about getting driven by wasted friends, Myron Bolitar promises both girls that if they ever need a ride, they can call him and he’ll pick them up, no questions asked. All too soon he gets a chance to deliver. Aimee phones him from midtown Manhattan, where he just happens to be staying, and asks him to drive her to suburban New Jersey. Myron obliges but pushes a bit too hard with the questions, and Aimee vanishes into a strange house. The next day she’s still missing, and in jig time the police, armed with Myron’s credit-card slips and EZ-Pass records, come calling. It turns out that Myron’s not a credible suspect. But because everybody connects Aimee’s disappearance to that of fellow student Katie Rochester three months ago, Myron’s on the hook with some serious people, from Aimee’s parents, who beg him to bring her home, to Katie’s mobbed-up dad, who’s too proud to beg but has other ways of getting him to cooperate.
As usual, Coben piles on the plot twists, false leads, violent set pieces and climactic surprises with the unfocused intensity that have made his thrillers (The Innocent, 2005, etc.) such a hot ticket.Pub Date: April 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-94949-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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