An engaging but messy fusion of a wife’s cybersleuthing and an old-fashioned whodunit.
A university professor’s discovery of her spouse’s questionable online activities may tie her to a homicide in this murder mystery.
Both Isabelle Weston and her husband, Scott, are surprised when she catches him masturbating at a computer. Having spotted a screen name, Isabelle hacks into his AOL account—it’s 2004 —the next day at their New Jersey condo. She finds proof that Scott has engaged in explicit online chats with women. This alone upsets her, but Isabelle doesn’t want to sign divorce papers until she knows whether one or more of these virtual relationships has turned physical. So she creates her own account and, as “Maggie the Cat,” tries covertly interacting with Scott’s online persona. But when a fatal shooting has possible ties to Scott’s cyber activities, Isabelle fears Maggie will land her in trouble. Sure enough, Detective Antinori considers her a person of interest in the murder case. This results in Isabelle’s telling the detective a few lies and discarding potential evidence. She also learns even more about her husband’s virtual conquests as well as the possibility that Scott has been up to something that’s outright illegal. Williams creates an alluring mystery: The story opens with the murder before flashing back several weeks to Isabelle’s discovery. While the victim is known, the killer could be any number of suspects—even Isabelle. The couple’s periodic online chats are sometimes droll, especially with Scott unaware that Maggie is his wife. These furthermore make him increasingly unlikable, as his conversations are akin to an inexperienced adolescent’s chats. But Isabelle is an appealing protagonist, and the story aptly showcases the complexities of unfaithfulness in the virtual world. Numerous mistakes in the text are an unfortunate hindrance, including misspellings beyond the cyberchats (“The First Wife’s Club”; “breathe mints”) and anachronisms (Scott sports an iPhone).
An engaging but messy fusion of a wife’s cybersleuthing and an old-fashioned whodunit. (acknowledgments)Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64530-098-4
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A character-driven tale whose Christmas cheer pretty much edges out the feeble mystery.
The merriment you’d expect between Thanksgiving and Christmas is stifled by murder in Lighthouse Cove, California.
The star of the season is the Cliffs Hotel, a marvelous restored Victorian mansion overlooking the ocean. Building contractor Shannon Hammer and her crew are working on plans for a Christmas Fun Zone on the grounds highlighted by a carousel and of course Santa. Shannon is close to Bill and Lillian Garrison, who own the Cliffs, and their children, who all work there except for the eldest, Logan, who is in the Navy. Logan’s stunning but awful wife, Randi, is a close friend to Shannon’s archenemy, conniving backstabber Whitney Reid Gallagher, who ruined Sharon’s long friendship with Arabella Garrison. Soon after Logan surprises the family by leaving the Navy and taking a job as community director for Homefront, a community supporting veterans, cracks quickly appear in long-standing family relationships, and it’s clear that Logan and Randi’s marriage is on the rocks. Shannon is enjoying a fancy pre-Christmas dinner at the Cliffs with her fiance, popular author MacKintyre Sullivan, and their circle of friends when the lights go out. When Shannon goes to check the circuit breakers with Mac and their friend Police Chief Eric Jensen, she finds Randi with her throat slashed. The fact that one of Shannon’s pink tools was used to do the deed makes her determined to find the killer. Luckily, both Shannon and Mac already have some experience as sleuths, and there’s no shortage of people who hated Randi.
A character-driven tale whose Christmas cheer pretty much edges out the feeble mystery.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9780593637647
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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