by M.L. Longworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2015
Art theft is a hot topic on the mystery scene, and no one’s heist is livelier than Longworth’s.
Recently returned from holiday (Murder on the Île Sordou, 2014), examining magistrate Antoine Verlaque is confronted with a dead postman, a mysterious painting, a beautiful professor, and a short-tempered lover.
Managing a small apartment building in the old city of Aix-en-Provence is not easy. But Mme. Chazeau handles the tenants of 23 rue Boulegon, famous as the last residence of Paul Cézanne, with aplomb. That is, until the discussion of who should have use of the small débarras on the first floor. Dr. Pitavy, a podiatrist, wants to use it for spare equipment. Mme. Joubert, who rents her two flats to students, wants one of her tenants to be able to keep her bicycle there. Eric and Françoise Legendre, having just moved in, have no opinion. But when retired mailman René Rouquet learns that the building's deed names him owner of the small storeroom, he goes postal, leaving the meeting and then quarreling on the street with Pierre Millot, who runs out to retrieve him. This disagreement is all the more uncomfortable for young Millot when Rouquet turns up dead. But even more uncomfortable is Rebecca Schultz, the striking African-American art historian who's standing in Rouquet's apartment, over his corpse, when Verlaque discovers it. Now Verlaque is charged not only with solving René’s murder, but with unraveling the mystery of the painting he left behind: a portrait painted with Cézanne’s characteristic brush strokes, but not of the artist's somber mistress, Hortense. Instead, it’s an image of a smiling young girl in colorful Provencal garb. Who's the girl? Is the painting a Cézanne? Verlaque tackles these puzzles, all the while struggling with a coldness growing between him and longtime love Marine Bonnet.
Art theft is a hot topic on the mystery scene, and no one’s heist is livelier than Longworth’s.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-14-312807-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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by Agatha Christie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1934
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
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by Robert Goldsborough ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2020
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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