McLean’s reliance on endless inner monologue makes his latest entry read like hard-boiled Henry James.
Police offer a Scottish private eye a devil’s bargain when his credentials are threatened.
At first, J. McNee (The Lost Sister, 2011, etc.) is shocked by a letter from the Association of British Investigators telling him that his membership is suspended pending an investigation. McNee killed a man who worked for London gangster Gordon Egg, a thug engaged in a turf war with Dundee’s homegrown hard boy David Burns. Cameron Connelly of the Dundee Herald tells McNee that local police are preparing to charge him. But why reopen the investigation now? McNee wonders. Sandy Griggs of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency has an answer: SCDEA wants McNee’s help in getting close to Burns and will make the charges go away if he cooperates. McNee wants no part of Griggs’ deal. His old partner, Ernie Bright, was killed six months ago after cozying up to Burns. Still, life without ABI membership is tough. His current employer, Andy McDowell, has to let him go. So he accepts an unlikely client. Elizabeth Farnham wants McNee to clear her former neighbor Alex Moorehead. Alex is serving time for killing Elizabeth’s 10-year-old son, Justin, banged up by none other than the late Ernie Bright, who seemed to fixate on Alex early in the case. He’s also suspected of killing a series of other young boys who disappeared near Dundee and were never found. At first McNee is skeptical, since Alex confessed in open court to killing Justin. But although he’s admitted killing Justin, he refuses to talk about the others. As McNee investigates, he learns that all roads lead back to “Dundee’s ‘Godfather’ ” as he finds ties between Burns and the mothers of the disappeared.
McLean’s reliance on endless inner monologue makes his latest entry read like hard-boiled Henry James.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8410-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
All three tales offer a dash of detection, but their strong suit is hometown charm.
Veteran Maine crime writers Meier, Hollis, and Ross (Yule Log Murder, 2018, etc.) team up once more for a trio of holiday-themed treats.
Haunted houses, a holiday staple, are an especially good fit for the authors’ folksy Down East setting. When the decrepit house at 66 School St. in Meier’s “Haunted House Murder” is purchased by a young couple, the good citizens of Tinker’s Cove have high hopes for its renovation—at least until the spooky lights and eerie noises emanating from the tower of the home make the local residents fear for the safety of their new neighbors. In “Death by Haunted House,” Hollis ups the ante. Not only does the couple that buys the creaky old place next door to Hayley and Danny Powell look and act peculiar, but Wendi Jo Willis, the real estate agent who sold them the house, disappears shortly after closing the sale. And in "Hallowed Out," Ross casts her net wide, offering a whole bundle of haunted houses for the price of one. To draw off-season tourists to Busman’s Harbor, Harley Prendergast, owner of the Lobsterman’s Wharf Motel, starts up a haunted house trolley tour. Some of his ghosts are questionable at best. But in the venue offering the best-documented of the local legends—the shooting of bootlegger Ned Calhoun—Prendergast’s guests get to witness a real-life shooting that leaves Spencer Jones, the actor who portrays Calhoun, undeniably dead.
All three tales offer a dash of detection, but their strong suit is hometown charm.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1996-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Griffiths, who is known for the Magic Men mysteries and the Ruth Galloway series, has written her first stand-alone novel...
A secondary school English department in West Sussex is turned upside down by a series of bookish killings.
Clare Cassidy is heading into middle age with just her teenage daughter, her faithful dog, her diary, and her teaching job to occupy her time. The most exciting part of her life may be the biography she hopes to write of R.M. Holland, a writer of gothic tales who once lived in the school where she works. But when one of her colleagues in the English department at Talgarth High is found murdered with a line from "The Stranger," the very same Holland story that has long obsessed Clare, left on a Post-it next to her body, she quickly realizes the murderer must be someone who knows an awful lot about her. This suspicion is confirmed when, the day before Halloween, Clare discovers that someone else has left her a note in her own diary. As the violence escalates, Clare and the police must figure out why the killer seems so fixated on Clare—and what a supernaturally tinged tale more than a hundred years old has to do with the quiet lives of small-town Brits. Griffiths alternates points of view among Clare, her 15-year-old daughter, Georgie, and DS Harbinder Kaur, the queer policewoman in charge of the murder investigation. Thrown into the mix are excerpts from "The Stranger," itself a delicious homage to writers like M.R. James. Though all these ingredients occasionally cause some structural unwieldiness, Griffiths (The Vanishing Box, 2018, etc.) hits a sweet spot for readers who love British mysteries and who are looking for something to satisfy an itch once Broadchurch has been binged and Wilkie Collins reread.
Griffiths, who is known for the Magic Men mysteries and the Ruth Galloway series, has written her first stand-alone novel with immensely pleasurable results.Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-57785-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
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