A well-crafted and immersive paranormal mystery with a Southern accent.
A theater manager must survive the murders plaguing her small-town production in Drago’s supernatural mystery, the latest novel in the Crow Creek series.
Gabriela Rossi is the new stage manager of the Orpheum Theater in Crow Creek, North Carolina. The Italian transplant is not well liked by her colleagues, partly because she was promoted to her current position after a relatively short time at the theater. When the company’s producer is stabbed to death just days before the start of the new show, Bury Me in Autumn, the cast and crew are suspects. Gabriela is especially disturbed because, seconds before the producer’s body was found, she saw a ghost in the theater with a scar on his neck. “Beware the wolf’s mouth,” the ghost warned her. “He rises in the wolf’s mouth.” Crow Creek Sheriff Brad Gleason is on the case, and he’s happy to spend more time around Gabriela. There’s also Becky Stokes, a local reporter foaming at the mouth to cover the case. As more bodies start to pile up, the mystery becomes increasingly complex. Gabriela finds evidence of ancient rituals linked to the cult of Dionysus that call for sacrifice in the name of the dramatic tragedy. Drago’s prose is crisp and creepy, and he does a fine job incorporating the language and ethos of the theater: “When the doors open, the buzz of the invites bleeds into the house. Gabriela manages a grin. Previews should be exciting. They finally get to show off what they’ve been working on for six weeks. Isn’t that the purpose of theatre? The reason for art?” The premise gives the author an abundance of suspects and victims, and Drago keeps the reader guessing with a number of turns and reversals. A few elements ring a bit false—Gabriela’s frequent reversion to Italian words feels a bit forced—but in general, the mix of small-town claustrophobia, theatrical egos, and ancient mythology makes for an entertaining and surprisingly dark tale.
A well-crafted and immersive paranormal mystery with a Southern accent.Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-63796-9
Page Count: 305
Publisher: Gold Avenue Press
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Charming characters and settings make for a pleasant stop before trying your hand at the fudge recipes.
A kindhearted hotelier and fudge maker just can’t catch a break from murder.
Allie McMurphy is attending Mackinac Island’s first Midsummer Night’s Festival with her best friend, Jenn; her boyfriend, Rex Manning, a police officer; and her bichon-poo, Mal, when a fuss erupts over the disqualification of an entry in the competition to be named queen. On her way home with Mal, who’s afraid of the fireworks, Allie discovers the body of festival head Winona Higer, shot dead. This isn’t the first time Mal and Allie have found a corpse, and she’s developed a reputation for messing with murders, much to the displeasure of Rex, whose job description calls for him to solve Mackinac’s crimes. Despite being more than busy running her hotel and making fudge for her shop, Allie can’t resist a little snooping. The first suspects are naturally the family of the girl who was disqualified, but that kerfuffle seems a thin motive for murder. So does Winona’s argument with her gardener over her roses, which she thought he'd poisoned with the wrong fertilizer. Threatening notes to pageant judges precede another dead body, once again sniffed out by Mal. More shootings and break-ins raise the question of why the killer is targeting the festival judges. Or are these attacks just a series of red herrings to obscure a hidden motive? Allie needs to find the answer before she becomes the killer’s next victim.
Charming characters and settings make for a pleasant stop before trying your hand at the fudge recipes.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3553-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Plenty of hair-raising adventures combine with more cerebral pursuits in this enjoyable tale.
A murder on a train carries echoes of another fateful railroad trip.
Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Mike Sullivan, are in Chicago attending a conference. During a book restoration lecture on the last day, someone leaves a bag under Lindsey’s seat containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train inscribed from the author to Alfred Hitchcock, making it potentially very valuable. Lindsey turns it over to conference head Henry Standish, a man with a checkered past that’s earned him multiple enemies. Lindsey and Sully, along with Henry and many other conference participants, had taken a train from the East Coast to Chicago for the conference; now, as they settle into their roomette for the return trip, prospects for a pleasant ride turn sour when Lydia Armand—who took over Henry’s job after he was accused of fraud—turns up. That night, after some nasty verbal jousts, Lindsey hears thumping noises from the next compartment and sees a person shrouded in black in the passageway. The next morning, Henry is found murdered in his compartment. Upon the arrival of a dangerous snowstorm, the police remove passengers to a local inn near Briar Creek, Connecticut, Lindsey and Sully’s hometown, while they investigate. When the valuable book turns up in Lindsey’s laptop bag, she takes it to the police, while Sully, a boat captain, heads out in the storm to deliver food to nearby islands. Much to her consternation, Lindsey is unable to contact Sully, and a search discovers his boat drifting offshore. Clues from the boat indicate that Sully may have been spirited away, and Lindsey resolves to search for him while she seeks a motive for Standish’s murder.
Plenty of hair-raising adventures combine with more cerebral pursuits in this enjoyable tale.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593639337
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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