by Ngaio Marsh & Stella Duffy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2018
Though tart noir specialist Duffy (The Hidden Room, 2017, etc.) might seem an unlikely choice to flesh out the skeleton...
Marsh (1895-1982) gets her turn at resurrection in a posthumous tale, barely begun during World War II and set aside, that finds Scotland Yard’s DCI Roderick Alleyn sorely distracted from his secret mission in Marsh’s native New Zealand by the alarums and excursions of one wild night.
Talk about good timing. Aspiring engineer Sydney Brown has never taken the trouble to visit his distant grandfather, a local farmer who’s dying in Mount Seager Hospital, until the night the old man actually expires. Before Matron Isabelle Ashdown or her lieutenant, the amusingly misnamed Sister Gertrude Comfort, can do more than express preliminary condolences to Brown’s young heir, old Mr. Brown’s corpse disappears from night porter Will Kelly’s trolley, replaced by nothing less than the body of the matron. Also missing, and presumably connected, is the 1,000 pound payroll matron had made delivery clerk Jonty Glossop deposit in the hospital’s safe, along with a bonus: the 100 pounds Records Office clerk Rosamund Farquharson, back home from London, had won by backing rank outsider Lordly Stride. Although a storm has knocked out all communications with the outside world, Marsh’s franchise hero just happens to be on hand, summoned to gather information on some sinister coded wartime radio messages, and he instantly takes the case in hand. Over the course of the night, Alleyn interviews West End actress/Red Cross driver Sarah Warne, London physician Luke Hughes, a trio of convalescent soldiers chafing to get back to the war, and the local priest, Father O’Sullivan. They’re all hiding secrets, even the priest, and Alleyn serves less as an interrogator than a father confessor to all of them.
Though tart noir specialist Duffy (The Hidden Room, 2017, etc.) might seem an unlikely choice to flesh out the skeleton Marsh left behind, fans will be hard-pressed to find the joint between the two writers. Only the interminable denouement departs from Marsh’s ruthlessly efficient last acts.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63194-172-6
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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by J.A. Jance ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
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A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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by Lorna Barrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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