The detection is nominal, and the mystery takes a back seat to the comic bedlam that reigns throughout. But readers who have...
This first novel from Australian science writer Flannery (Atmosphere of Hope, 2015, etc.) travels back in time to 1932-1933—and back in cultural mores a lot further—when intrigue swirls around an aboriginal mask enshrined in the Sydney Museum.
“Enshrined” may not be quite the right word. Anthropologist Archibald Meek, returning from five years embedded with the natives of Venus Island, is horrified to discover the gigantic mask, ringed with 32 human skulls, prominently displayed in the museum’s boardroom. To be fair, Dr. Vere Griffon, the museum’s director, is equally unhappy that Archie overstayed his Venus Island posting by two years and fears he may have gone native—a fear shared in her own way by virginal archaeology registrar Beatrice Goodenough, who, swept off her feet by Archie’s posted marriage proposal, was seriously jolted by the personal gift that followed it. While he’s trying to mend fences with Beatrice, Archie can’t help noticing that four of the skulls surrounding the fetish are a different color than the others and that the buck-toothed mouth of one of them reminds Archie very much of Cecil Polkinghorne, his mentor, the latest of four museum employees to have vanished without a trace. Could someone be removing the original skulls, memorials of an 1892 shipwreck, and replacing them with more recently harvested products? Archie has precious little energy to devote to serious detective work when he must spend his days negotiating a cast of colleagues, board members, and government overseers straight out of P.G. Wodehouse and renegotiating his relationship with his ladylove. But the truth is bound to out, one way or another.
The detection is nominal, and the mystery takes a back seat to the comic bedlam that reigns throughout. But readers who have never before encountered sentences like “He knew he must get his foreskin back” will cheer Archie’s debut and hope for more.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-07942-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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