Fresh-catch grilling, red wine swilling, and a perplexing killing fill this breezy beach read.
In this mystery, a middle-aged Florida transplant deals with new friends, a hot fisherman, and body parts on the beach.
In Hanafee’s second book about inquisitive, wine-loving Leslie Elliott, the former Midwestern public relations executive now resides in Southwest Florida, where she attempts to start a new career as a mystery writer. Recently divorced, she also tries her hand at a new man: dimpled, sandy-haired Frank Johnson. Frank has a fishing boat and a spirited wife; supposedly he will soon part ways with one of them (spoiler alert: It won't be the vessel). One night while grilling fillets of fish at her condo, Leslie tells Frank she snooped inside a beachfront house under construction and found buzzards and a headless dog carcass. Frank reckons the house’s renovation is slow because the owner, widower Peter Thompson, lives primarily in Canada, and he suggests the dead animal was probably a coyote (but where’s the head?). The next day, Frank goes AWOL, and local children find a body in a boat on the beach. Yet when the sheriff arrives, the corpse is gone. Later, Leslie’s friend Deb Rankins and her art class find body parts on the shore, and the two women call the sheriff. But the sheriff—who told Leslie to mind her own business earlier when she called about the headless canine—again seems nonplussed. Leslie wonders: “Was there a killing spree in paradise that no one was talking about except for my friends and me?” Although thinking about Frank and writing her novel take up much of her days, she saves some time for dinners with Peter, who arrives to check on his house. It’s not clear in Hanafee’s story why two men are vying for Leslie’s attention, especially eye-candy Frank (“The man kind of takes your breath away”). And the crime novel fails to tie up loose ends, perhaps signaling a third installment starring the intrepid Leslie, who loves to look for clues and fears that she is “destined to be alone like the spinster ghost in the Tarpon Bar.” That said, juicy gossip about the community’s residents and amusing banter between Leslie and her mother—who confirms “There IS sex after 70”—make this enjoyable mystery’s pages turn quickly.
Fresh-catch grilling, red wine swilling, and a perplexing killing fill this breezy beach read.Pub Date: May 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-09-836473-1
Page Count: 268
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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