A fun escapist read with engaging characters and intriguing historical morsels; a solid series addition.
A ghost haunts the woods outside Lemont, Illinois, in this third installment of a mystery series.
Billy Nokoy, a 20-something Native American, knows he is considered a loser, but now he also thinks he must be going crazy. He seems to have the power to cause lightning bolt–style destruction. There is only one person who might be able to help him understand what happened at Mount Forest Island—Cora Tozzi. Grandmotherly Cora was there the day Billy’s mysterious force was released. Meanwhile, Valerie Pawlik, who was permanently blinded in an automobile accident two years ago, also faces a crossroads. She has mastered navigating without her eyesight, but her brother and sister-in-law want her to move out of their home. Divorced, without a job, the mother of an 11-year-old daughter living in California, and just about out of savings, Valerie is stuck in place. According to her psychological counselor, Father McGrath, she needs to make friends, never her strong suit, and to confront her unresolved emotional baggage—her mother abandoned the family when Valerie was 13 and she never saw her again. Father McGrath recommends she seek help from Cora, with whom she had a bitter fight just before her car crash. Everything is in place for Camalliere’s special sauce, a mixture of present-day drama, history, and unexplained phenomena—plus, of course, a ghost, in this case one who is a bit confused but determined to exact revenge. From the 1920s until the early ’40s, Mount Forest Island was home to a golf course and clubhouse used by Al Capone and his friends as well as a farmhouse with mob connections. The structures were torn down decades ago, but left behind, apparently, was some unfinished personal business. Billy’s and Valerie’s quests begin to converge when he becomes the reluctant mystical conduit between past and present. He alone sees the once-abandoned, now nonexistent structures, and only he interacts with the very talkative spirit. The author supplements genealogical research and supernatural meddling with satisfying, well-paced action scenes.
A fun escapist read with engaging characters and intriguing historical morsels; a solid series addition.Pub Date: March 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-937484-72-9
Page Count: 359
Publisher: Amika Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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