Though repetitive, this mystery proves even a car dealership can be a hub of Byzantine intrigue.
Emmett presents a business-oriented crime novel set in northern Arkansas.
Annette Dupart isn’t your typical CPA. With her .45-caliber Glock at her side, she isn’t one to avoid threatening situations. When she learns of trouble at the Mountain Luxury Cars dealership in Hastings, Arkansas, she is quickly on the scene. Two employees were gunned down while delivering a vehicle, and the office manager was found dead not long afterward. The three deaths are merely the beginning. The man originally behind the whole enterprise, one Sid Levin, had been shot to death a few years earlier. Sid seems to have been involved in much shadier operations than selling cars. Annette will assist with the investigation and serve as temporary general manager at the dealership, which is in dire need of her business savvy. Mountain Luxury Cars has a number of problems, from ordering costly parts for repair jobs to a suspiciously high number of employees in the accounting department. Who knew the life of an accountant could involve so much action? Annette—who is equally at ease looking over financial reports, questioning a potential embezzler, or facing down a riotous crowd—is an unusual crime-solving hero. And her professional acumen allows her to respond no matter what the situation. The ensuing complications are as diverse as Annette’s skill set, keeping both the main players and readers on their toes. Both dialogue and descriptions are plain (“As for me, I have a ton of things needing to get done”), and some occurrences are repeated unnecessarily. For example, the reader is told on multiple occasions how Sid Levin, originally from New York, wound up in Arkansas. Still, the mystery expands satisfyingly until the end.
Though repetitive, this mystery proves even a car dealership can be a hub of Byzantine intrigue.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2021
ISBN: 979-8-70-940238-6
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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