This intense, gripping racetrack drama is a winner by a nose.
A husband and wife—entangled in a murder case—deal with conflicts and danger in this horse racing mystery.
Larry Potter, the racetrack veterinarian at Woodbine, near Toronto, gets involved in an investigation when Golden Boy, a colt starting with 50-to-1 odds, collapses and dies during the race. Toxicology tests and sleuthing reveal that a groom was paid to slip cocaine to Golden Boy, resulting in a heart attack. Larry’s wife, Inspector Jenna Lawson, gets roped in when the horse’s adulterous trainer, Clement Montgomery, is murdered and castrated in his apartment (The crime scene “was one of the most brutal Lawson had ever encountered”). Toronto businessman Jonathan Piggott is later killed in an identical manner. Jenna ultimately has Montgomery’s widow, Trish, arrested for her husband’s murder' despite her having little connection to Piggott. Jenna’s investigation of Montgomery’s killing leads to tension in her marriage. Larry had been longtime friends with both Montgomerys. After Jenna asks Larry to step back from the homicide probe, he instead redoubles his efforts to find the race fixer, hoping there is a connection to Montgomery’s murder that could clear Trish. His efforts eventually pay off but in a manner that puts him in peril. While Jenna admittedly has doubts about Trish’s guilt, it takes a third, identical homicide in upstate New York to have her team look at a different suspect. Yet even that effort isn’t enough to yield a neat conclusion. Davis’ thriller succeeds despite a handful of dubious narrative choices. Jenna opts for the obvious when she arrests Montgomery’s widow, despite Trish’s having a tenuous relationship with the second victim. Likewise, Larry goes against his wife’s wishes when he continues to investigate the killings, setting himself up for danger. But the author’s research lends authenticity to the novel’s horse racing and policing backdrops. In addition, his decision to tell the story from the perspectives of Larry, Jenna, and the unnamed serial killer, the only fully developed characters, proves effective. And, in an enjoyable twist, the case appears to be closed when it really isn’t. The positives decidedly outweigh the negatives in this engrossing whodunit.
This intense, gripping racetrack drama is a winner by a nose.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-03-914553-5
Page Count: 328
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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