A series opener that’s a bouncy romp, albeit one with a corpse.
In this Hollywood Hills mystery, a struggling interior designer investigates who turned her deadbeat client into a dead one.
Surveying the spectacular progress interior designer Cissy Huntington and the construction crew had made on his Beverly Hills mansion, Dr. Robert Martin thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Soon, he was at least half right. After a brief argument, an unnamed associate shoots the wildly successful Hollywood plastic surgeon dead in his blood-red-painted library. Cissy, who discovers her only client with a fatal head wound, later learns from his lawyer that in addition to being behind on paying her, his “estate was not what one would have assumed.” The designer’s husband recently walked out on her after declaring bankruptcy so Cissy desperately needs the money due her. She and her 22-year-old daughter, Emma, befriend Martin’s niece and sole heir, Susan Wallerski, who arrives in Los Angeles from her home in Wichita, Kansas, for the funeral. Cissy tells Susan she needs the payment. But Susan says she needs closure with finding out who murdered her uncle. The two investigate Martin’s neighbors and celebrity clients for clues. Along with Emma, they also search the doctor’s home and find a secret sealed room containing what may have led to his murder. Profanity is commonplace in this series opener, and some non-swear phrases will give readers pause, such as the description of the plastic surgeon redoing a starlet’s bumpy proboscis with “the standard JAP nose.” Although James, an LA interior designer, nails descriptions of amber-toned, pear-wood paneling and Murano chandeliers, the speed at which the estate is handled is unrealistic. Using the names of actual Hollywood players as characters getting plastic surgery likely won’t sit well with readers. But the camaraderie of a multigenerational group of women, the frequent mention of luxe clothing brands and establishments, and the presence of “thirty-something, dark-eyed hottie” homicide detective Manny Rodriquez moves the enjoyable story along merrily and at a brisk pace. A plus for readers to reference are the blueprints provided for each floor of the doctor’s home.
A series opener that’s a bouncy romp, albeit one with a corpse.Pub Date: March 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9998582-5-7
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Black Hawk Press
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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