A sly reminder that “movies, like politics, are unreality. That’s the point of them.”
A posthumous novel Crichton (1942–2008) wrote in 1973 under the pseudonym John Lange, in between The Andromeda Strain and The Great Train Robbery, but left unpublished till now.
As Harvey Jason knows all too well, the life of a movie publicist is no fun. Now that he’s spent three weeks in Tucson, Arizona, for the shooting of the western Bloodrock, Harvey’s come to know every watering hole in town and every scandal among the cast and crew. Except, that is, for the scandal that threatens to break out when Arthur McDougall, the screenwriter who’s come along for possible rewrites, is found dead in his hotel bathtub. The studio head back in Hollywood preemptively dispatches insurance investigator Harlow Perkins—“a regular Sherlock Holmes”—before any of the insurance companies backing the production can hire him themselves. In short order, the dislikable Perkins lines up interviews with leading actors Clete Williams and Brenda Conrad, promiscuous second lead Sally Oldman, producer Charles Mann, director Tom Franklin, and the rest of the crew. Whoever he talks to, he’s accompanied by Harvey, shadowing him under the orders of his boss, publicity chief Sam Appelbaum, who’s far from convinced that news of the incident will be bad for business. The characters are no more memorable than Colonel Mustard or Miss Scarlet, but Crichton, as in the SF novels that would make him famous, sweats every detail of the background, and aspiring filmmakers will learn as much about the mechanics of moviemaking as they could from most film textbooks. If you think the big reveal falls flat, just keep on reading to the end.
A sly reminder that “movies, like politics, are unreality. That’s the point of them.”Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9798212514309
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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
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