Burrows’ bird-watching expertise lends authenticity to an excellent mystery whose conflicted protagonist faces hard...
A police detective with a tough case is distracted by moral ambiguities in his own life.
Brilliant DCI Domenic Jejeune (A Siege of Bitterns, 2014) is that rara avis, a Canadian serving in the British police force. Just as the Saltmarsh cops are called in to investigate the brutal murder of environmental scientist Philip Wayland, Jejeune has to leave for the Scottish Highlands, where local police have found a bird guide with his name on it on the unidentified body of a man who fell from a coastal cliff. Jejeune recognizes the book as a message from his reckless older brother, Damian, who’s in trouble with the law and wants his help. Both brothers are avid birders, and Damian made the trip to Great Britain with the dead man, who wanted his help illegally trapping wild gyrfalcons. Filled with trepidation, Jejeune takes Damian back to the Norfolk home he shares with his girlfriend, journalist Lindy Hey. In the meantime, his team, including his sergeant, Danny Maik, has been searching for clues in Wayland’s murder. Wayland was working in carbon-capture research, first at the Old Dairy property financed by Emirati Crown Prince Ibrahim al-Haladin, then switching to the nearby university where his fiancee works, raising hackles among some key parties. The public footpath leading through the Old Dairy property where Wayland was found has been the scene of several protests over the project, which threatens to destroy much of the local coastline, and the protesters are likely suspects. His colleagues naturally wonder why Jejeune is so distracted, and when a young woman working with gyrfalcons on the prince’s land is ostensibly killed by one of them, Jejeune keeps to himself his search for a connection between the man dead in Scotland and his own case.
Burrows’ bird-watching expertise lends authenticity to an excellent mystery whose conflicted protagonist faces hard decisions.Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4597-3214-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dundurn
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
The charming heroine has all too little to work with in this overlong and not very mysterious series opener.
Dirty deals are covered up by murder.
In a departure from her Flower Shop series (Tulips Too Late, 2018, etc.), Collins introduces a divorced mother who’s returned to Michigan and the suffocating bosom of her Greek family. Athena works at her father John Spencer’s garden center along with her younger sister, Delphi. Under the name Goddess Anon, she blogs out her frustrations with her family, who, failing to recognize that they’re the subjects of the blog, find it highly amusing. Working late one night, Athena disturbs a man trying to remove something from a life-size marble statue of her namesake that her grandfather had recently purchased, planning to use it to adorn his diner. Talking to strange men alone is not a wise idea, but Case Donnelly’s extraordinary good looks and his tale that the valuable statue actually belongs to him turn her head. The statue, however, is the least of her worries, for all the shops on Greene Street, known as Little Greece, are about to be torn down by powerful developer Grayson Talbot Jr., whose late father had planned to cancel the project. Athena, who’s dating annoying lawyer Kevin Coreopsis to keep her mother happy, soon becomes involved in protecting Case, who’s been seen leaving the scene of Talbot employee Harry Pepper’s murder. It seems a strange coincidence that everyone who was opposed to tearing down Little Greece has suddenly died. Believing Case innocent, Athena hides him on her grandfather’s rarely used boat, and a haircut, a beard, and some bronzer turn him into a Greek fisherman. As the leaders of the Greek community fight to save their shops, Athena attracts Talbot’s interest. He tries to bribe her by offering both an area for the diner and a large apartment for her grandparents in the new construction he plans. Her refusal puts her in danger from someone who’s already killed twice.
The charming heroine has all too little to work with in this overlong and not very mysterious series opener.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2433-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Neatly incorporates history, social commentary, and a satisfying mystery in one appealing package. More, please!
A fashionable Australian private eye finds herself embroiled in a difficult case just after World War II.
As a war correspondent, Billie Walker witnessed some terrible things in Germany and still carries many burdens, including the disappearance of her journalist husband. Back home in Sydney, however, she has returned to full-time work as owner and investigator of a private inquiry agency she inherited from her late father. She even has Sam, a brave and affable secretary-cum-assistant, himself a former soldier. When a woman asks Billie to find her missing teenage son, clues lead to The Dancers, an elite club, and Georges Boucher, owner of an expensive auction house. It seems that an old family photo of a particular necklace is at the heart of the case, but who has taken Adin Brown, and to what end? At the same time, Billie's secret informant Shyla reports on a man in the country who has been mistreating girls. Of course, both cases are related, and the truth behind Adin’s abduction, in a very Dashiell Hammett–like turn of events, involves Nazi war criminals, stolen treasures, and a prostitution ring. Billie is a smart, glamorous, kind, and well-turned-out woman, and her addition to the world of literary private detectives is welcome and deserved. She carries a bit of the hard-boiled tradition on her shoulders—the vulnerability, the brashness—while providing a completely feminine perspective on both the crimes and the approach to crime-solving. Moss clearly did a lot of research for the novel, including a great deal in fashion and sewing, so sometimes the details and descriptions can be lengthier than necessary, but gradually, as the pace picks up, these details serve to help us get to know the characters on multiple levels. The setting feels simultaneously familiar and exotic.
Neatly incorporates history, social commentary, and a satisfying mystery in one appealing package. More, please!Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-18265-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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