A well-done crime yarn but not for the straight-laced or those prone to fantods.
Book 8 in DeMille’s John Corey series unlocks a complex murder mystery set on Fire Island.
The jokes start right away: “You can’t drink all day unless you start in the morning.” Corey is a former NYPD homicide detective, and he's currently "NYU—New York Unemployed." He has plenty of enemies, like the Russian SVR intelligence service, which wants him dead—but waiting for that plotline to develop is like waiting for Godot. Ex-lover Det. Beth Penrose conveys an offer that he become a consultant to Security Solutions Investigative Services, “a very tacky private investigative agency” located on Suffolk County farmland with a giant hedge maze as a neighbor. Though Beth doesn't say so, the plan seems to be that Corey will be her confidential informant, getting inside Security Solutions to learn if it has any connection to the killings of nine young Long Island women. Security Solutions is a fun-loving outfit, with after-hours parties like Thirsty Thursdays. You’ve got your booze, your broads with names like Tiffany, your cops both present and ex, your politicians, a disbarred lawyer—fertile and dangerous grounds for Corey’s snooping. Like the maze, the plot has “twisting paths with lots of dead ends,” but “you have to wake up real early to pull one over on John Corey.” But before the guns start blasting, he fires his “pocket rocket” into a willing woman, a suspect named Amy. “Emission accomplished,” he later muses. Ah yes, Corey has a million sex jokes that would have teenagers TikTok-ing “ROFLMAO.” Are there nude beaches in Bermuda? He’d love to check out the Bermuda triangles. Is tonight “poker night? Or poke her night?” And why do strippers have names like Tiffany and not Best Buy? Anyway, Corey hasn’t settled down with a woman: “Ospreys mate for life,” he states. “But are they happy?” Oh yes, again with the plot: There’s a tough, unsolved murder case with interlocking crimes and suspects that ends in a fiery finish.
A well-done crime yarn but not for the straight-laced or those prone to fantods.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0178-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A lively, rambling whodunit, full of vintage British charm.
Multiple maritime murders are recounted with a flourish by the retired inspector who solved them.
The discovery of an unidentified corpse washed ashore near a small fishing boat in 1953 sends bombastic Yorkshire Superintendent Arthur Juggers and hapless Inspector Frank Grasby to remote Uthley Bay on the North Sea to investigate. Foul play is indicated by a Christmas stocking wrapped around the victim’s neck. Meyrick’s second mystery is framed as a reminiscence from the diaries of the ebullient law enforcement veteran Grasby, long on merry yarn-spinning and short on detecting. Grasby’s plummy prose is sprinkled with juicy Briticisms like “tough cheddar” and “he hasn’t got a patch on F. Grasby, you know.” The plot rattles reliably along with multiple genre components, from a second similarly murdered victim to a mysterious message consisting of newspaper cutouts. The duo poses unconvincingly as ornithologists, one of many examples of Juggers’ grandiose self-delusion, reliably pricked in Grasby’s asides to the reader. Larger-than-life Uthley Bay residents who emerge as suspects are depicted with satiric glee. They’re suspicious of the two bumbling detectives and involved in personal squabbles that are folded into the chugging mystery plot. A notable additional character is the frigid setting. Superintendent Juggers’ deep affection for the sea—he revels in naked swims in the freezing water—leads to a hilariously harrowing episode summarized by Grasby: “I’ve survived a world war, only to die in the Battle of the Stocking.”
A lively, rambling whodunit, full of vintage British charm.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9781464257902
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
A little humor, a little romance, a little detection, but no solid takeaway.
Murder disrupts a bookstore’s grand opening in Winthrop, Washington.
Tess Harrow is going all out for the launch of Paper Trail, the painstakingly renovated bookshop on the site of her father’s old hardware store. Not only has she scheduled her latest novel, Fury Under the Floorboards, for release the night of the store’s launch party, but she’s allowed her daughter, 15-year-old Gertie, to plan a menu of tasty treats, including sushi-grade tuna flown in fresh that morning from Seattle. So she’s less than thrilled when her mother, mega-diva Bernadette Springer, shows up even earlier than the fish with her boyfriend, Levi Parker, in tow. Parker is famous all over Instagram, accused of murdering two women in New York and one in Detroit, although no one’s been able to make the charges stick. But this time, he’s the one who ends up in the morgue. Relieved as Tess is that her mother won’t be Parker’s next victim, his death derails the plans for her gala reopening big-time. First, journalist Mumford Umberto ditches his plans for an extended interview with Tess in favor of covering the crime. Next, podcaster Neptune Jones sets up shop down the street, drawing away the huge crowds that Tess expected at Paper Trail. Worst of all, Sheriff Boyd, who Tess keeps hoping will declare his feelings for her, invites Neptune to stay at his house and help him crack the case. Tess spends so much energy grieving the injustice of it all that she barely has time to solve the mystery, even when it looks as if her mom is a prime suspect. Although Berry’s dialogue is crisp and funny, her scattershot plotting may leave some readers wishing for a bit less.
A little humor, a little romance, a little detection, but no solid takeaway.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781728248660
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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