Long on Napa Valley culture, short on logical deduction. The heroine’s nickname perfectly suits Gordon’s pleasant debut.
Sunny McCoskey is living your basic Northern California daydream. She runs her own little café in Napa Valley, where she cooks fresh pasta and drinks espresso with a splash of red wine or hangs out with her friends, who also lead halcyon lives of wine-making, importing, whatever. Sunny’s best friend, Wade Skord, the owner of a small, though of course excellent, winery, rends the fabric of this Shangri-La when he’s arrested for the murder of Jack Beroni, crown prince of Beroni Vineyards, a large commercial operation adjoining Wade’s more elitist grounds. The cops think Wade is the perp who shot tuxedo-wearing Jack in the dark at the Beroni gazebo because, along with violently disagreeing with Beroni, he also plays Assault Golf, a nocturnal game involving a rifle, a nightscope, and fluorescent golf balls. Naturally, Sunny begins her own investigation, which uncovers a host of reasons for someone to shoot arrogant Jack. For generations, the Beroni family has relied heavily on the blue-collar Campaglia family. Unlike their elderly father, Gabe and Alex Campaglia resent la famiglia Beroni—particularly Jack, who supported spraying pesticide county-wide to control the glassy-winged sharpshooter, an insect that threatens the Valley with a disease deadly to grape vines, over the objections of the Campaglias and other residents and organic farmers like Ben and Claire Baker, Sunny’s restaurant suppliers.
Long on Napa Valley culture, short on logical deduction. The heroine’s nickname perfectly suits Gordon’s pleasant debut.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8118-3462-X
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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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