by Sharon Love Cook ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 29, 2016
A cozy whodunit that makes Granite Cove a congenial place for readers to visit.
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A reporter in a small New England town investigates a series of murders tied to a local old-age home in Cook’s (A Nose for Hanky Panky, 2014, etc.) third Granite Cove mystery.
Rose McNichols is a local newspaper reporter and, in her spare time, a stand-up comic. One afternoon, her comedy gig at the Shady Nook Retirement Home is interrupted when Greta Dupnik, one of the patients, is found dead in her bed, crushed by an overturned bookcase. Greta’s roommate, Mabel Smithwick, says that the death was not an accident. She also believes that she, Mabel, was the intended victim—because she was an eyewitness to another murder several months before. Intrepid reporter that she is, Rose decides to look into Mabel’s allegations. It becomes clear that there’s something to them, because it isn’t long before Mabel is dead, too. All signs point to the involvement of Mabel’s wealthy family—her wastrel son, Edmund Jr.; his late-life wife, Sonia; and Sonia’s son from a previous marriage, Otto Gurwitz, a cartoonist with an internet following. But murder isn’t the only thing that Rose has on her plate; there’s also her romance with a talented musician named Kevin Healey and a flirtation with Forester Fairbank, a newcomer to Granite Cove who books her to perform at an old garage that he’s turned into a club. The author has written a very low-key mystery that’s set to the slower rhythms of small-town life. Along the way, readers get plenty of local color and many vivid local characters, several of whom are suspects in the mystery plot. Whether it’s a newspaper office or an old-age home, the author manages to inject a convincing sense of reality into her imaginary settings. And even if Rose isn’t the world’s greatest stand-up comic, she still manages to show how resourceful she is in bringing a killer to justice. Now, if only she could remember the punch line to that pantyhose joke.
A cozy whodunit that makes Granite Cove a congenial place for readers to visit.Pub Date: May 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-72206-0
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Neptune Rising Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2008
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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