An endlessly delightful tale and band of characters, even if the mysteries aren’t the centerpiece.
A woman’s newly renovated family inn faces numerous troubles, including a couple of possible murders, in this third installment of a series.
After two years of renovations following extensive hurricane damage, Pennington Point Inn has finally reopened in Maine. Elizabeth Pennington, along with her lover/business partner (and former FBI agent), Kurt Mitchell, is ready for visitors. But nothing can prepare her for a guest’s (apparent) accidental death in the fitness center. On the upside, people are checking in, like country music star Eli Hunter and his entourage. But even with Kurt’s help, Elizabeth has a lot on her plate, from managing demanding guests to handling jobs for her interior design business back in Connecticut. And it may be too much to take on, especially with the possibility that a recent death and accident—a second body at the inn and Elizabeth’s jeep running off the road—were quite intentional. Making matters even worse are a presumed-dead killer targeting Elizabeth and unpaid property taxes threatening the inn itself. Then a mysterious woman gifts Elizabeth with a page from her grandmother’s diary. It includes instructions on locating a treasure, a riddle-laden hunt Elizabeth willingly undertakes for the adventure—not to mention the prospect of valuables to pay off debts. Goetjen (Murder Beyond the Precipice, 2018, etc.) packs her mystery novel with myriad subplots, all of which provide the story with an unwavering tempo. Many of these are engrossing, such as the kitchen’s stubborn chef and the ex-friend/inn employee with a drinking problem whom Elizabeth considers rehiring. Amid the entertaining storylines are dramatically sound ones: Elizabeth and Kurt visit his parents, and his father still blames him for his younger brother’s death years ago. While there are several concurrent mysteries, Elizabeth has minimal involvement in their resolutions, which is disappointing. It’s nevertheless understandable that she steadfastly focuses on the inn’s upkeep, and the tenacious protagonist is not above a bit of black humor: “Elizabeth thought of all the untimely deaths at the inn and wished the ME hadn’t had so much practice.”
An endlessly delightful tale and band of characters, even if the mysteries aren’t the centerpiece.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73314-390-5
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Secret Harbor Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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