Food and clothing headline a well-written, meagerly plotted mystery presumably aimed at foodies and fashionistas.
The murder rate continues to climb in the charming New Jersey town of Arborville.
Widow Pamela Paterson and her pal Bettina Fraser, who reports for the local paper, have been instrumental in solving several crimes. So when Jenny Miller is found in her community garden plot, strangled with a circular knitting needle, the two spring into sleuthing mode. The murder is the talk of their Knit and Nibble group, and there’s much information to chew over as they search for a suspect. Pamela and Bettina quietly question several fellow gardeners Jenny had quarreled with to determine whether any of them are also knitters. Meanwhile, Pamela takes in Jenny’s shy cat and ponders accepting a date from a college professor while she joyfully welcomes her daughter, Penny, home from college for the summer. Since Penny’s no fan of her mother’s sleuthing, Pamela keeps it low-key, using Bettina’s job as an excuse to ask questions. When Jenny’s mother is murdered in the same way, some of the suspects can be eliminated. That would make it easier to pinpoint the killer if only garden disputes were a realistic motive for murder. Winkling out the real motive is no easy job until a sudden flash of memory gives Pamela just the clue she needs.
Food and clothing headline a well-written, meagerly plotted mystery presumably aimed at foodies and fashionistas.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3389-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Whimsy meets woodsy.
A mystery writer finds solace and murder in rural Oregon.
Mystery writer Tess Harrow is worried about her daughter, Gertrude. The usually resilient 14-year-old is stung by her father’s utter silence since his divorce from Tess. Fortunately, Tess has just the answer: She’ll take the feisty teen to an isolated cabin in the woods, far from Seattle coffee shops, the internet, or running water. Gertie’s reaction is predictable, but nothing else is. Shortly after their arrival, they hear a sudden boom, and water, fish, and body parts rain down from the sky. When he finally answers their distress call, Sheriff Victor Boyd tells them it’s probably “the Peabody boys.” Sure enough, Adam and Zach have been blast fishing with dynamite again, only this time, somebody stashed a corpse in the lake before their first kaboom. Boyd’s deputy Carl, who’s detailed to keep watch on Tess’ cabin, disappears, but Ivy, his female counterpart, is unfazed. What she wants most of all is for Tess to read the 1,000-page science-fiction adventure she’s written and shop it to her agent. In the meantime, Tess is fascinated with Boyd, a dead ringer for her own franchise hero, Detective Gonzales. If she can only tag along after Boyd while he’s trying to crack the case, she figures that her next novel, Fury in the Forest, will practically write itself. Boyd wants Tess dogging him about as much as he wants eczema, but eventually the two make their peace with the help of hipster librarian Nicki Nickerson, the third Peabody triplet, a man in a Bigfoot costume, and a roving flock of toucans.
Whimsy meets woodsy.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-72824-860-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Neither the characters nor the mystery makes nearly as much of an impression as the setting and the cuisine.
More accurately, Four Murders Most French, since none of the homicides entangling Julia Child’s circle in postwar Paris seems any more Gallic than the others.
Joining Julia at a tasting during a monthly meeting of her wine club at L’École du Cordon Bleu, her neighbor, friend, and amanuensis Tabitha Knight is on hand to watch Chef Richard Beauchêne taste his very last wine, an 1893 Volnay Clos de la Rougeotte that he samples just before keeling over. Cyanide, thinks Tabitha, whose determination to stay away from anymore murders is on a collision course with her sense that she’s channeling Agatha Christie. Although Inspecteur Étienne Merveille wholeheartedly endorses her reluctance to get involved, she’s left with little choice after she recognizes Louis Loyer at another event as the chef who was arguing with Beauchêne on the evening of his last libation only moments before Loyer uncorks an 1871 Sauternes that turns out to be his last round as well. Assuming that the two poisonings (more will follow) can’t be a coincidence, Tabitha wonders if it’s a coincidence that she’s been on the scene for both of them and begins to make a cautious list of other people who were present for both deaths. Considering that she’s not much more interested in the suspects than her author, Tabitha does a highly effective job of identifying the culprit and tipping her hand in a way that forces her once again to employ her Swiss Army knife to rescue herself from certain death.
Neither the characters nor the mystery makes nearly as much of an impression as the setting and the cuisine.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781496739629
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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