An engrossing thriller built around a strong central character.
Trouble reliably finds an aging but clever private eye in Helms’ witty mystery novel.
Ex-cop Eamon Gold has a soft spot for losers. Jordy Pankratz is a down-on-his-luck bookkeeper who approaches Eamon for protection; Jordy has borrowed money from a loan shark, and now goons are threatening him (“ol’ Sammy wasn’t averse to paying the band for a little knuckle music to motivate delinquent payers”). After Eamon and his protégé, Sonny Malehala, chase off the thugs, the loan shark, Samuel Brownlee, hires Eamon to find his missing wife, Rhonda, in exchange for letting Jordy pay off his debt unmolested over time. Eamon is soon drawn into the world of Rhonda’s Real Housewives–like friends and their largely criminal mates, and the bodies soon start dropping. Eamon is lured to a cabin belonging to Julia Wanamaker, who had run away with Rhonda, and he makes a startling discovery there. Shortly thereafter, Samuel is arrested for murder, but Eamon doesn’t believe he’s guilty. Eamon also gets hired to assist attorney Wilson Varnadore, the “Great White Shark,” in his defense of Libby Cordelia Hackney, a P.I. suspected of the murder of a missing radio station owner. The more Eamon looks into the two cases, the more suspects he uncovers, some of whom end up dead. Eamon attempts to stay on everyone’s good side as he unravels the complex mysteries. This entertaining fifth entry in Helms’ series features an older and mostly wiser Eamon, who’s pondering his legacy. (His protégé, Sonny, is quite content with his role as a security director at a Hawaiian resort.) In former cop Libby, Eamon and his paramour, Heidi, see a very rough diamond needing some polish. Helms takes an intriguing approach to the narrative, starting in the present, then flashing back to a year earlier, then proceeding slowly back to the present. Given all the affairs, keeping track of everyone’s motives can be difficult, but it’s energizing to try to solve the mysteries along with Eamon.
An engrossing thriller built around a strong central character.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
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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