by Mette Ivie Harrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 30, 2014
Harrison, herself a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is known for her children’s fantasy books...
A questioning Mormon woman becomes involved in two mysteries.
A Mormon bishop is called to serve part-time, not lifetime, and his wife has no official standing. But Linda Wallheim strives to help her husband, Kurt, cope with the many calls on his time. When they’re awakened early one morning by Jared Helm and his 5-year-old daughter, Kelly, Linda has no inkling how profoundly their lives will be changed by Jared’s claim that his wife, Carrie, has left him. Linda has 5 grown sons, but she can’t forget the loss of her stillborn daughter, and little Kelly captures her heart. When the girl tells Linda that her father dropped her mother off somewhere during the night, Linda wonders whether Carrie really ran away. Carrie’s wealthy, angry parents are equally skeptical. As the police begin an investigation, Linda, who’d like to do more with her life, strikes up a friendship with Anna Torstensen, whose husband, Tobias, is gravely ill. Anna, who has a graduate degree and worked in banking before marrying Tobias, is just the sort of independent woman Linda would like to be. Although she has no children, Anna has raised the two boys from Tobias’ first marriage as her own. Now that Tobias is dying, he rambles on about visiting his first wife’s grave even though nobody knows where it is. Despite Kurt’s entreaties to leave these problems alone, Linda is driven to investigate out of concern for Kelly. The discovery of two bodies produces devastating revelations for Linda and the close-knit community, but she never thinks of giving up her search for the painful truth.
Harrison, herself a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is known for her children’s fantasy books (The Rose Throne, 2013, etc.). This decidedly adult tale adds twists aplenty to an insider’s look at a religion replete with its own mysteries.Pub Date: Dec. 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61695-476-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
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by J.A. Jance ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
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A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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by Lorna Barrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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