An enjoyable mystery and historical information combine in a puzzle whose pieces don’t always fit together snugly.
A trip to the Scottish Highlands provides another crime-solving opportunity for a pair of aristocratic sleuths in 1905.
The beauty of the Highlands has always appealed to Lady Emily Hargreaves. So she; her husband, Colin; their twin sons, Richard and Henry; and their ward, Tom, are delighted to accept an invitation to Cairnfarn Castle from their dearest friend, Jeremy Sheffield, Duke of Bainbridge. The village is hosting a ceilidh to welcome Dr. Genevieve Harris, that rara avis at the time, a woman doctor, who’s replacing the retiring Dr. William Cameron. The people are friendly and the party fun, but the following day the boys stumble on the body of Angus Sinclair, Jeremy’s gamekeeper. There’s something of a mystery about Sinclair, who’d left the area years before to become a lawyer in Edinburgh and recently returned to take up the job of gamekeeper. He’d been seen arguing with Dr. Harris, who reveals that the dead man is certainly not Angus Sinclair, to whom she was engaged for two years before he vanished. The faux Sinclair was a great favorite with the local ladies, and Emily wonders if a romantic entanglement rather than his masquerade could provide the motive for his murder. Alexander spins a counterpoint tale set in 1676 Cairnfarn of Tansy, a formerly enslaved woman from Tunis who longs to return home but becomes embroiled in one of the many witchcraft trials so prevalent in Scotland in that period. Although Emily is certain that Sinclair’s murder has nothing to do with witchcraft, the sleuths have their hands full unraveling a web of lies.
An enjoyable mystery and historical information combine in a puzzle whose pieces don’t always fit together snugly.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781250872333
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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
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