A little over the line.
The brutal consequences of white-collar crime in the wrong hands.
A hit man drives north from London, savoring the delights that await him when he finds his victims. Perhaps raping the wife in front of her husband before killing them both? But his pleasure is cut short when he arrives to discover John and Isobel York already dead and the piles of money midlevel crook Brendan Quant gave them to launder nowhere to be found. Now Quant is dead, too, and his widow, Marcie, has partnered with his old bodyguard, Darren McCabe. McCabe needs to find the missing money fast because some of the loot Brendan placed with the Yorks actually belonged to crime boss Dunster Cosmo, and Dunster wants his dosh. Meanwhile, Henry Christie, mourning his lost love Alison Holt, wants to put police work behind him and spend his days helping Alison’s daughter, Ginny, manage her pub, The Tawny Owl. But as his fling with police detective Diane Daniels turns more serious, Henry joins the chase for the Yorks’ killer as a paid consultant, and soon the good guys are chasing the bad guys all over the Midlands, with both sides shooting at everything in sight. Oldham makes some pointed distinctions between the sadistic thrill-killing of the bad guys and the violence the police deem necessary to subdue them. Christie tears up, for example, when he and his team think they’ve located the loot and find instead a container truck full of dead refugees. But Oldham’s detailed description of the cops imagining the last anguished gasps of the victims as they realize that their container’s ventilation system has failed and they’re going to suffocate makes you wonder: Isn’t sadism the real point here?
A little over the line.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8960-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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