In the fourth installment of this seabound series, Axelrod (Nantucket Grand, 2016, etc.) and his protagonist bring an...
Current crimes and a cold case enliven a police chief’s holiday season.
Even though New York– and California-bred Henry Kennis has been Nantucket’s chief of police for several years, he’s still viewed as a relative newcomer on “the Rock,” especially by the families who’ve lived on the island for generations. And for the working people who can barely meet expenses while the superrich off-islanders are pouring in to build bigger and bigger mansions, the annual holiday lottery of red tickets—offering $5,000 in prizes donated by local businesses—is a coveted opportunity to brighten up the holidays. In the days before the holiday and the ticket drawing, a missing Santa Claus, stolen Toys for Tots that supposedly contain treasures, and a series of drug buys keep Kennis and his staff hopping, along with the discovery that someone may be rigging the red tickets. Kennis is also trying to help blend his family—his son and daughter—with his girlfriend and her son in the new home they’re renting. Just when he thinks he’s succeeded, and even his family issues are working out, the daughter of the town crier gets food poisoning, recently exhumed skeletal remains start looking more and more like those of a murder victim, and the island’s very own Scrooge maneuvers to avoid the consequences of a 20-year-old crime. But with the help of Kennis—the shrewd, street-wise cop who writes poetry on the side and is willing to break the rules to get the best results for the most people—fans can keep wishing for an outcome worthy of Dickens and the holiday season.
In the fourth installment of this seabound series, Axelrod (Nantucket Grand, 2016, etc.) and his protagonist bring an amused, judicious, and ultimately tolerant eye to the foibles large and small of a mixed Santa’s bag of characters.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4642-0713-6
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.
Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).
After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1134-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An expert juggling act that ends with not one but two intercut trials. More, please.
His Clifton Chronicles (This Was a Man, 2017, etc.) complete, the indefatigable Archer launches a new series that follows a well-born police officer from his first assignment to (spoiler alert) his appointment as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police some volumes down the road.
William Warwick may have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he’s done everything he can to declare his independence from his father, Sir Julian Warwick QC. When William, fresh out of King’s College with a degree in art history, announces his intention to enroll in Hendon Police College, his father realizes that he’ll have to count on William’s older sister, Grace, to carry on the family’s tradition in Her Majesty’s courts. Instead, guileless William patrols the streets of Lambeth until a chance remark lands him on DCI Bruce Lamont’s Art and Antiques unit under the watchful eye of Cmdr. Jack Hawksby. No fewer than four cases await his attention: the forger who signs first editions with the names of their famous authors; a series of even more accomplished forgeries of old masters paintings; a well-organized series of thefts of artworks by a gang whose leader prefers selling them back to the companies who’ve insured them and often don’t even report the thefts to the police; and a mysterious series of purchases of century-old silver by one Kevin Carter. His investigations take William across the path, and then into the bed, of Beth Rainsford, a research assistant at the Fitzmolean gallery, still reeling seven years after a priceless Rembrandt was stolen from its collection, most likely by landowner and self-styled farmer Miles Faulkner. As if to prevent William from getting even a moment’s sleep in between rounds of detection and decorous coupling, Beth unwillingly drags William into a fifth case, a 2-year-old murder whose verdict she has every reason to doubt. One of these cases will bring William up against Grace, whose withering cross-examination of him on the witness stand is a special highlight.
An expert juggling act that ends with not one but two intercut trials. More, please.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-20076-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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