A rousing adventure that has little in common with the Holmes canon except for some proper names.
Sherlock Holmes goes to Egypt.
Or, more accurately, Dr. Watson goes to Egypt in 1911 in hopes that the desert air will chase away his wife Juliet’s tuberculosis, and the Col. Arbuthnot he bumps into turns out to be Holmes in disguise. The Great Detective’s client is Brazilian-born Lizabetta del Maurepas, Duchess of Uxbridge, whose husband, impoverished Duke Michael Uxbridge, an Egyptologist, has vanished after purloining a map purporting to show the location of a never-opened pharaonic tomb from Ohlsson, a Swede who’s been murdered. The duke is supposed to be staying in Suite 718 of Shepheard’s Hotel, but there is no such suite—the first of many mysteries Holmes is called upon to solve in the company of his old friend, who promptly leaves his wife in her sanitarium and follows his leader. Instead of finding the duke, the pair find a trail of corpses (three Egyptologists and a waiter, with more to come) of much more recent vintage than Tuthmose V, the pharaoh who so bedazzled the duke. Holmes learns that his quarry has been traveling in the company of Fatima Gassim, an exotic dancer who’s almost certainly a spy. A titanic battle between the fearsome khamsin and the Star of Egypt will leave more people dead. Holmes and Watson will narrowly avoid being entombed alive. In fact, Meyer keeps the pot boiling so furiously that the climactic revelation of the murderer will catch some readers sheepishly admitting that they’d forgotten there was a mystery to be solved.
A rousing adventure that has little in common with the Holmes canon except for some proper names.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2507-8820-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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A procedural? A closed-circle mystery? A reckoning with the past? Whatever it is, this is not what it seems.
A quiet Georgia neighborhood is disrupted by the depredations of the Savannah Slasher.
Not that there aren’t already tidal conflicts eddying around the place. When Billy Huber falls off a ladder and dies, nobody really mourns: Ever since he walked away from the one-car accident that killed his wife, Linda-Sue, eight years ago, the only people he’s been at all close to are the ones he’s fighting with. Even so, most of these conflicts are so minor that the news Billy was murdered turns up very few credible suspects for homicide detective Pierce Reed and his much more active wife, bestselling true-crime writer Nikki Gillette, to investigate. Forbidden by her husband from entering the crime scene or accessing any confidential information, Nikki happens to be on hand for a key revelation: A polished stone engraved with Hebrew and Arabic numbers was discovered under Billy’s body. That bit of information becomes way more valuable with the discovery of a similar stone under the corpse of society maven Mavis Greenlee. The two have clearly been killed by the same person, but what on earth could be the motive for targeting citizens from both the very top and the very bottom of the neighborhood’s social hierarchy? Nikki, still mourning the loss of Pierce’s late partner, Sylvie Morrisette, who died trying to save Nikki from drowning, can only hope that a third murder will clear the air. And as it turns out, the Slasher isn’t done. Whodunit fans can relax: The culprit is such a minor character that there’s no point in trying to deduce, or even guess, who it is.
A procedural? A closed-circle mystery? A reckoning with the past? Whatever it is, this is not what it seems.Pub Date: June 30, 2026
ISBN: 9781496753748
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
A meager mystery, but it’s always worthwhile catching up on the interactions between Nora and her friends.
A bookstore owner and her pals have more than one mystery to solve.
Nora Pennington is the owner of Miracle Books in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, where she's surrounded by a group of good friends who call themselves the Secret, Book, and Scone Society: Hester Winthrop, a baker; Estella Sadler, a salon owner; and June Dixon, a hotel guest manager. And ever since a fire at her home, Nora’s been living with her partner, Sheriff Grant McCabe. Now she’s thrilled to be hosting her first-ever author evening at Miracle Books. Cozy mystery author Allie Kennedy is promoting her new book, The Dry Bar Murders, and Nora and her staff and friends have their hands full getting ready for that event as well as an upcoming Halloween Fun and Fright Night, which will include activities for kids as well as a demonstration by psychic medium Lara Luz. McCabe, for his part, is trying to catch someone dumping hazardous waste all over town. Nora’s biggest disagreement with McCabe is over his deputy, K9 handler Paula Hollowell, who goes out of her way to be nasty to Nora and her friends. The day of the Halloween event, Lara arrives with her boyfriend, Enzo Russo, and a bad cold. Nora is surprised when Hollowell arrives and even more so when Allie Kennedy shows up, glaring at Hollowell. The psychic readings start well enough, but suddenly Lara turns pale, gasps for air, and dies despite Hollowell’s CPR attempts. A frantic Enzo shoves Nora, giving her a concussion. Lara evidently died from a bad reaction to Narcan—it turns out she had a heart condition that didn't interact well with the drug—and the investigation shows that she’d angered many people by accepting valuable pieces of jewelry that had belonged to the dead, which Enzo sold in his pawn shop.
A meager mystery, but it’s always worthwhile catching up on the interactions between Nora and her friends.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781496743824
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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