by S.S. Van Dine ; edited by Leslie S. Klinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2023
An annoying but undeniable landmark in the history of the genre.
A heavily and appropriately annotated reprinting of Philo Vance’s celebrated second case, first published in 1927.
When showgirl Margaret Odell, widely known as the Canary, is strangled in her West Side apartment, the obvious suspects are the men she was most recently involved with, all of whom seem to have been engaged in mysterious activities: neurologist Ambroise Lindquist, whose love for his patient was unrequited; manufacturer Kenneth Spotswoode, the beau who dropped her off shortly before she was killed; career politician Charles “Pop” Cleaver, whom she threw over for Spotswoode; and raffish fur importer Louis Mannix. But District Attorney John F.-X. Markham and homicide Sgt. Ernest Heath focus instead on Tony Skeel, a burglar who was almost certainly inside the Canary’s apartment, either as a witness or as a perp, at the moment of her death. Vance, the famously irritating dilettante friend of Markham’s, offers to help out with the case. The main assistance he provides for most of the running time is supplying a stream of facetious allusions and foreign phrases that editor Leslie S. Klinger conscientiously translates. The murder of Skeel seems to render the case unsolvable until Vance, disclaiming physical evidence for psychology, invites the surviving suspects to an evening at poker, after which he throws out all the previously assembled clues in favor of his sublime assurance that he can now identify the killer. The solution, which hinges on one of the most notorious clichés in golden age detective fiction—Agatha Christie used it twice, and it begs to be added to the list of forbidden devices that conclude Van Dine’s appended “Twenty Rules for Detective Stories”—will surprise most readers a lot less than the sleuths on the case.
An annoying but undeniable landmark in the history of the genre.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781728283302
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
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by Anthony Horowitz ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2024
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.
What begins as a decorous whodunit set in a gated community on the River Thames turns out to be another metafictional romp for mystery writer Anthony Horowitz and his frequent collaborator, ex-DI Daniel Hawthorne.
Everyone in Riverview Close hates Giles Kenworthy, an entitled hedge fund manager who bought Riverview Lodge from chess grandmaster Adam Strauss when the failure of Adam’s chess-themed TV show forced him and his wife, Teri, to downsize to The Stables at the opposite end of the development. So the surprise when Kenworthy’s wife, retired air hostess Lynda, returns home from an evening out with her French teacher, Jean-François, to find her husband’s dead body is mainly restricted to the manner of his death: He’s been shot through the throat with an arrow. Suspects include—and seem to be limited to—Richmond GP Dr. Tom Beresford and his wife, jewelry designer Gemma; widowed ex-nuns May Winslow and Phyllis Moore; and retired barrister Andrew Pennington, whose name is one of many nods to Agatha Christie. Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan, feeling outside his element, calls in Hawthorne and his old friend John Dudley as consultants, and eventually the case is marked as solved. Five years later, Horowitz, needing to plot and write a new novel on short notice, asks Hawthorne if he can supply enough information about the case to serve as its basis, launching another prickly collaboration in which Hawthorne conceals as much as he reveals. To say more, as usual with this ultrabrainy series, would spoil the string of surprises the real-life author has planted like so many explosive devices.
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063305649
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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by Michael Connelly ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 2022
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.
A snap of the yo-yo string yanks Harry Bosch out of retirement yet again.
Los Angeles Councilman Jake Pearlman has resurrected the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit in order to reopen the case of his kid sister, Sarah, whose 1994 murder was instantly eclipsed in the press by the O.J. Simpson case when it broke a day later. Since not even a councilor can reconstitute a police unit for a single favored case, Det. Renée Ballard and her mostly volunteer (read: unpaid) crew are expected to reopen some other cold cases as well, giving Bosch a fresh opportunity to gather evidence against Finbar McShane, the crooked manager he’s convinced executed industrial contractor Stephen Gallagher, his wife, and their two children in 2013 and buried them in a single desert grave. The case has haunted Bosch more than any other he failed to close, and he’s fine to work the Pearlman homicide if it’ll give him another crack at McShane. As it turns out, the Pearlman case is considerably more interesting—partly because the break that leads the unit to a surprising new suspect turns out to be both fraught and misleading, partly because identifying the killer is only the beginning of Bosch’s problems. The windup of the Gallagher murders, a testament to sweating every detail and following every lead wherever it goes, is more heartfelt but less wily and dramatic. Fans of the aging detective who fear that he might be mellowing will be happy to hear that “putting him on a team did not make him a team player.”
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-48565-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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