An immersive first outing for a crime-solving odd couple.
An aging concierge and a desperate private eye team up in Craft’s mystery series starter.
Fifty-something Dante O’Donnell moved to Palm Springs seven years ago, giving up a not-so-successful acting career to marry his doctor boyfriend, Anthony Gascogne. Two years ago, Anthony asked for a divorce, and a few months afterward, he was murdered in an apparent break-in. Now Dante is working for a vacation rental company, looking after properties and some of the VIP clients. While assisting a wealthy art dealer, Dante runs into Jazz Friendly, the officer who investigated Anthony’s murder. Jazz has since lost her job and is now working as a rent-a-cop, providing security for the art dealer’s merchandise while moonlighting as a private detective. Dante and Jazz hate each other—Jazz wrongly arrested Dante for his husband’s killing, which indirectly caused her to lose her job—but when Jazz saves Dante from being framed for a different crime, the two call a truce. In fact, she asks if he might be able to drum up some PI business for her among the wealthy vacationing set. Dante agrees, but when a body turns up in the swimming pool of one of his rentals, he and Jazz are thrown into a caper that’s larger than either could have expected. Craft’s prose style is dry and sharp, perfect for the desert resort milieu of the aging rich and those who make their living from them. For example, here, Dante visits Jazz’s office in the back of a coffee shop for the first time: “Taped to the inside of the glass was a makeshift sign that I recognized as a photocopy of Jazz’s business card, which had been enlarged several times….I assumed Jazz didn’t get many walk-ins.” Dante and Jazz make for an intriguing pair, as both are flawed in their own embarrassing ways, and both are searching for something to fill the voids in their lives. Craft has long been an inventive mystery writer, and this new series promises to add a bit of grit to his distinctively colorful brand of storytelling.
An immersive first outing for a crime-solving odd couple.Pub Date: May 2, 2022
ISBN: 9781954841994
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Brash Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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