Claire’s clever solution, however, arrives only after endless shoals of red herrings—including one that requires...
Pink fluff, that gourmet treat concocted of Jell-O and Cool Whip, is the favorite snack of retired Palm Springs decorator Stewart Chaffee, but it’s also an excellent description of theater director Claire Gray’s second dalliance with murder—the murder of Stewart himself. The day after he deposits a mysterious document with Merrit Lloyd, his personal banker, Stewart and his wheelchair are crushed beneath the refrigerator where Bonnie Bahr, his home nurse, had stashed his latest supply of pink fluff. An automated camera at the entrance to Stewart’s gated home in Rancho Mirage has obligingly snapped photographs of every car that visited Stewart that fatal Monday morning, but in the absence of fingerprints at the scene or intimate knowledge of Stewart’s intimates, Palm Springs Detective Larry Knoll aptly remarks, not for the first time (Desert Autumn, 2001): “I’m man enough to admit it—I could use Claire’s help.” Tearing herself away from final rehearsals for that gossipy classic Laura, Claire effortlessly summarizes every suspect’s age, physical appearance, and sexual orientation; gives all her information-rich colleagues in and around Desert Arts College the opportunity to dispense educational discourses on the meaning of a painting’s provenance and the difference between fine and applied arts; and comes up with the sudden brainwave that solves the case.
Claire’s clever solution, however, arrives only after endless shoals of red herrings—including one that requires intervention by publisher/sleuth Mark Manning, visiting from Craft’s other series (Hot Spot, p. 615, etc.)—so fragrant that they can only be marking time until the curtain’s ready to fall.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-30501-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2002
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...
A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.
Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk.
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
You have seven days to live after reading this review. Is that your phone ringing?
First in a trilogy by a newcomer publishing house that promises high-class works from Japan.
Ring has sold three million copies in its native country, says Vertical, been filmed there, and the film remade here as a postmodern horror mystery released by DreamWorks as The Ring. In one month in 1990, four Japanese students who live fairly near each other die mysteriously of heart failure. Tomoko Oishi dies in the family kitchen, Shuichi Iwata on his motorcycle while waiting for the light to change at an intersection, and Haruko Tsuji and Takehiko Nomi in the front seat of a car while undressing for sexplay. All four have faces constricted with horror and seem to be pulling their heads off or blinding their vision. Tomoko happens to be the niece of Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist, who links all the deaths and sees a story in it. Japanese journalism has been through a heavy period of occult reports, and Asakawa’s editor only hopes it has all died down. A card Asakawa finds in Tomoko’s desk leads him to discover that all four victims had watched a video tape they’d been warned against viewing—a tape, as it happens, that’s something of a virus (in Asakawa, its horrific images cause sweat and shortness of breath). Then comes the message: Those who view these images are fated to die at this exact moment one week from now. If you do not wish to die, you must follow these instructions exactly . . . . Then the phone rings (hence Ring) and unspeakable bugs invade Asakawa until he slams down the receiver. Too late, though: he has a week to live. He brings in brainy Ruiji to help him, and Ruiji watches the tape. This stifling sense—is it an evil energy? Then Asakawa’s wife and daughter watch it . . . .
You have seven days to live after reading this review. Is that your phone ringing?Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-932234-00-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Vertical
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
