Once more, Cha often sacrifices suspense and plot twists for a more philosophical approach to mystery, though she clearly...
Tracking the surrogate mother for a high-maintenance client leads a bright young shamus to delve into Armenian cultural history and the meaning of closure.
No longer a rookie private investigator (Beware, Beware, 2014, etc.), Juniper Song has graduated from digging through the trash of suspected liars and cheaters to actual detective work. Her latest client, Dr. Rubina Gasparian, has some control issues about what exactly she wants investigated. Song is game for the job, though she has suspicions about her assigned task: to follow Rubina’s very pregnant cousin Lusig, who's acting as a surrogate for the infertile Rubina. Rubina has been doing some amateur detective work herself and has already taken the liberty of applying a GPS device to Lusig’s car. Song learns that one of the reasons Lusig has evaded Rubina’s watchful eye is that she’s engaged in some detective work of her own: Lusig’s closest friend, Nora, has been missing for about a month, and Lusig is tenaciously tracking down untapped leads. It seems that Nora’s confrontational blog, Who Still Talks, a forum on the 1915 Armenian genocide and its deniers, may have brought the historical debate from online chatter to something up close and personal. In order to protect what’s most important to her, the child Lusig is carrying, Rubina hires Song to find Nora so Lusig can stay home and let nature take its course. Apart from milking Veronica Sanchez, her LAPD connection, it appears the best thing Song can do is learn about the genocide, the deniers, and Who Still Talks. Her search leads Song down a rabbit hole of complex relations, perhaps involving hazy government connections, though the truth of what happened to Nora may be much closer to home.
Once more, Cha often sacrifices suspense and plot twists for a more philosophical approach to mystery, though she clearly knows where she wants to go.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-06531-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
Utter non-scents.
Die-hard Yankee candle maker Stella Wright (Murder’s No Votive Confidence, 2018) gets caught up in a trans-Atlantic murder plot.
Stella thoroughly enjoys her trip to Paris even though her mother, perfume expert Millie Wright, who’s scheduled to speak on a panel entitled “The Art of Scent Extractions” at the World Perfumery Conference, gets preempted by a murder. Sadly, once they’re back home in Nantucket, things get even weirder. Stella receives an anonymous note threatening her mom if Stella doesn’t turn over a secret formula hidden in Millie’s bag. Her mom can’t help because she’s in the hospital courtesy of an overenthusiastic attempt by Stella’s cat, Tinker, to befriend her. While trespassing on a suspicious sailboat, Stella meets U.S. Agent Sarah Hill, who warns her that well-known anarchist Rex Laruam plans to disrupt the upcoming Peace Jubilee using a stolen formula he secreted in Millie’s bag after he stabbed the agent guarding it back in Paris. Ignoring the advice of her friend Andy Southerland, a Nantucket cop, to leave detection to the professionals, Stella tries to unmask the elusive Laruam. As she spies on a bevy of unlikely suspects, the plot spirals further and further out of control: There’s a Canadian couple staying at an Airbnb run by Stella’s cousin Chris who whisper sweet but suspicious nothings in the dark, a shovel-wielding schoolmarm, a gang of old geezers who have a collective crush on Millie, a surprise 30th-birthday party planned by Stella’s beau, Peter Bailey, and an even more surprising impromptu airplane ride.
Utter non-scents.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2141-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.
A plucky group of early-20th-century detectives (Murder on Trinity Place, 2019, etc.) takes on the Black Hand.
The leads include Frank Malloy and Gino Donatelli, former police officers who started a detective agency after an unexpected legacy made Malloy a wealthy man; Malloy’s wife, Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy society family who runs a maternity clinic for the poor; and their nanny, Maeve, a budding sleuth who works in Malloy’s office. All of them leap to attention when Gino’s sister-in-law Teodora reports that Jane Harding, a worker at the settlement house where Teo volunteers, has been kidnapped by the Black Hand, who are notorious for abducting the wives and children of anyone who can afford to pay ransom. The New York Police Department is corrupt, and the local Italian immigrants never report crimes. Mr. McWilliam, who runs the settlement house, had asked Jane to marry him, but she’d asked him to allow her to experience more of the single life before deciding. Seeking clues, Sarah visits Mrs. Cassidi, an earlier kidnapping victim who’s refused to talk to anyone, in hopes that her nursing experience and sympathetic manner will get results. Mrs. Cassidi admits to being raped but knows little about where she was held captive, a quiet place in a house where she could hear children. Soon after Nunzio Esposito, a leader of the Black Hand, tells Malloy that no one’s been taken from the settlement house, Jane suddenly reappears but refuses to discuss where she’s been. Lisa Prince, Jane’s well-to-do cousin, reluctantly agrees to take her in even though Jane’s jealous of her wealth and can be unpleasant to deal with. When Esposito’s found murdered in a flat he rented for his mistress, Gino, who’s just arrived on the scene, is arrested. Now the clever sleuths must solve both the murder and the abductions to clear Gino’s name.
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0574-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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