Minor Brett, which is very minor indeed, but still a treasure trove of microgossip.
An unlikely accusation at a wake kicks off the latest case of murder in Fethering, that quaint little village time forgot.
Carole Seddon hadn’t known retired insurance man Leonard Mallett well enough to attend his funeral service out of a sense of personal attachment, but her sense of communal responsibility—she serves on the Committee for the Preservation of Fethering’s Seafront, which he chaired—is rewarded when she’s made privy to his daughter Alice’s passing remark that he was killed by Heather Mallett, his second wife and Alice’s stepmother. The minor scandal that erupts has no impact on the police, who stoutly continue to maintain that Mallett’s fall down his staircase was entirely accidental. Whatever Heather’s role in his decease, she’s amply punished on the night of Alice’s wedding to Roddy Skelton by someone who strangles her and dumps her body into the water, leaving it to wash up next day on that well-preserved seafront. The evidence doesn’t point to anybody in particular, but the title suggests that the guilty party is a member of the Crown & Anchor choir, a group assembled specifically to perform at the wedding ceremony. Given their vast experience in petty homicide (The Liar in the Library, 2018, etc.), it’s inevitable that Carole and her healer friend, Jude Nicholls, would resolve to find the killer. Their insinuating queries unearth several questionable alibis, several more Christie-like red herrings, several revelations of musical misdirection and incompetence, and one serious case of PTSD. This time, though, the plot is as disjointed as this list would suggest, and the denouement comes not with a bang but a bemused shake of the head.
Minor Brett, which is very minor indeed, but still a treasure trove of microgossip.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78029-118-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Creme de la Crime
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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
Furiously suspenseful, but brain-dead second volume in Child’s gratuitously derivative Jack Reacher action series (Killing Floor, 1997). Reacher, a former Army Military Police Major, has now moved on to Chicago, where he gallantly assists a beautiful mystery woman hobbling on a crutch with her dry cleaning. Seconds later, Reacher and the woman, FBI agent Holly Johnson (also daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as goddaughter of the President), are kidnaped by armed gunmen. Handcuffed together and tossed in the back of a van, the two are taken to the Montana mountain stronghold of Beau Borken, a fat, ugly, psychopathically vicious neo-Nazi militia leader given to sawing the arms off day laborers and making windy speeches about how he brilliant he is. Of course, the kidnappers don’t know that they have a former military police major in their clutches who, in addition to having a Silver Star for heroism, is one of the best snipers the Army has ever produced, can pull iron rings out of barn doors, and kill bad guys with lit cigarettes. Meanwhile, a team of FBI agents, at least one of whom is a mole leaking information to Borken, identify Reacher from a reconstructed photo taken from the dry cleaner’s surveillance camera. Borken, impressed with Reacher’s military record, lectures him about his brilliant plan to overthrow the US using a hijacked Army missile unit, with Holly held as a hostage in a specially constructed, dynamite-lined prison cell. Borken stupidly lets Reacher best him in a shooting match, then grandiosely turns his back on his captives enough times for Reacher and Holly to escape, cause havoc, get captured, escape, make love in the woods, cause more havoc, and get captured again, as General Johnson, FBI Director Harlan Webster, and General Garber, Reacher’s former commander, plan a covert strike on Borken’s fortress that’s certain to fail. Another Rogue Warrior meets Die Hard with all the typical over-the-top plotting, blood-splattering ultraviolence, lock-jawed heroics and the dumbest villains this side of Ruby Ridge.
Pub Date: July 20, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14379-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
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