Though Ray can be a mite sententious, he’s also appealingly fallible and sensitive in this promising series kickoff.
This debut by a New York schoolteacher endows a New York schoolteacher with the power to crack a case the police can’t be bothered to solve.
You’d never know it was five years since Raymond Donne quit the NYPD. The leg injury that sidelined him reminds him so often of his departure that it might as well have been last week. Although Ray’s job teaching middle school wouldn’t seem to require his making personal calls on his students, he’s so concerned when promising pitcher Frankie Rivas, 14, misses over a week of class that he hikes out to Roberto Clemente Plaza, where Frankie lives with his sister, Milagros, 8, and their grandmother, Matilda Santos. And when he makes a second stop to see Francisco Rivas Sr., who has official custody of his son, and finds that he’s too late to speak to him alive, Detective Royce, finding him on the scene, assumes that Ray’s trying to talk himself back into another case. Royce has a point. After all, Ray is the one a neighbor calls after someone breaks into Ms. Santos’ apartment. It’s Ray, not Royce, who drives upstate to question Frankie’s cousin, Anita, and her husband, John Roberts, whose travel agency employed Francisco, and Ray who returns to the city with an important clue the cops would never have found. Ray, whose uncle and namesake is a high-ranking officer, left the force on purpose, and he keeps telling himself he wants no part of it now. But everything he does to find Frankie and his sister and make sure they get home, even after he’s been kidnapped by some serious criminals himself, says differently.
Though Ray can be a mite sententious, he’s also appealingly fallible and sensitive in this promising series kickoff.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-00898-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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
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