Though the pace lags at times, the characters are richly detailed and true to life, and the ending is sure to please fans.
A Seattle homicide detective is thrust back into a painfully personal case when the remains of her 20-years-vanished younger sister are uncovered in a shallow grave near Cedar Grove, the Washington mountain town where they grew up.
Forty-two-year-old Tracy Crosswhite has long felt responsible for what happened the night her goofy, fun-loving sister, Sarah, disappeared. Former lawyer Dugoni (The Conviction, 2012, etc.) retells the events of that evening in flashback, recounting how, upon leaving a shooting championship, Tracy asked Sarah to drive her truck back to Cedar Grove during a storm so Tracy and her boyfriend could make it to their romantic dinner reservation. The next morning, the empty truck was discovered on a county road with Sarah nowhere to be found, and her disappearance turned both the Crosswhite family and the town itself upside down. As Tracy's engagement fell apart and her parents lost themselves to grief, Tracy found herself doubting the legality of the trial that eventually put local oddball Edmund House in prison for Sarah's apparent murder. Now, with the fresh evidence of her sister's remains in her arsenal, Tracy seizes the opportunity to reinvestigate Sarah's fate—and the possible conspiracy she believes led a man to get convicted for a crime he didn't commit. The majority of the book centers on Tracy's quest to uncover the truth and secure a new trial for House. Though the book is well-written and its classic premise is sure to absorb legal-thriller fans, it grows a bit plodding at times, with too many pages dedicated to House's retrial.
Though the pace lags at times, the characters are richly detailed and true to life, and the ending is sure to please fans.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4778-2557-0
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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