Occasionally witty, but Brett’s send-up of the congenial village mystery needs more companionable protagonists than...
Weldisham, a rural village recently tarted up by London nabobs longing for a place to weekend in the country with all the mod cons, is in for a bit of a shock when Carole Seddon, from the neighboring village of Fethering, takes a walk on the Downs, seeks shelter in a derelict barn during a storm, and discovers two bags full of cleanly picked bones. Whose? The regulars at the Hare and Hounds suggest they might be those of Detective Sergeant Lennie Baylis’s mum, who walked out on her abusive husband years back. Or of Graham Forbes’s first wife, who left with him for a posting in Kuala Lumpur, where she supposedly ran off with a university professor. Or of young Tamsin Lutteridge, who despite extreme inertia from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, has vanished. Soon enough, Carole’s chum and amateur-sleuthing companion Jude finds Tamsin, leaving Carole to fend off an unwanted suitor, offend prizewinning former char Pauline and her menacing son Brian, and discover yet another dilapidated barn that acted as a repository for those old bones. Gossip, innuendo, quaffs at the pub, arson, another death, and a last-chapter cargo of drugs, thugs from the south, and three Weldisham ne’er-do-wells out to conquer the town—all come into play before Carole contemplates life beside a publican and Jude decides Ireland might just be her cuppa.
Occasionally witty, but Brett’s send-up of the congenial village mystery needs more companionable protagonists than self-effacing Carole and cryptic Jude (The Body on the Beach, 2000).Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2001
ISBN: 0-425-17953-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
