Enriched by historical data, this spellbinding police procedural has a vicious sting in its tail.
Someone calling himself Matthew Hopkins—the name of the 17th-century Witchfinder General—is killing people he deems modern-day witches.
But first he calls DS Grace O’Malley on her mobile phone to warn her of impending trouble, and signs off by saying, "I know where Dominic is!" Dominic Boswell is Grace’s husband, the assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, and she finds him handcuffed to a bed about to have sex with a prostitute. Determined to divorce him, Grace leaves Dominic there and gets a call about a woman burned to death on a boat floating down the Thames. By now, BBC reporter Juliette Bouchet has also had a call from Hopkins, who directs her and a cameraman to Westminster Bridge ten minutes before midnight on Halloween. The area is crowded with costumed revelers, including a bunch of Oxford students carrying Count Dracula in a coffin, who all get to see the fiery boat with its human cargo, medium Veronica Crosse, explode as it passes under the bridge. A police team explores all aspects of the well-planned crime, which required technical expertise and several people, one of whom may have had inside knowledge. The pressure to solve the mystery is intense even before medium Abigail King is killed in another show by the Witchfinder, and a simple but devout preacher who believes in witches becomes part of the picture. When a fork is found in Crosse’s mouth with the prime minister’s fingerprint, all hell breaks loose. Investigations reveal even more high-up involvement, but Grace refuses to back down from a complex, dangerous investigation made more difficult by hints and threats from the Witchfinder.
Enriched by historical data, this spellbinding police procedural has a vicious sting in its tail.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781448320356
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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