Two stories of crime and deception make for a witty, riveting novel.
Kidnappings in Dublin ignite a rash of double-crossings in Doherty’s mystery/thriller.
In Book One of this novel, Celine Doyle learns that her husband, Kevin, is cheating on her. Her friend Liz Moore makes an unusual suggestion; she offers to have someone kidnap Kevin for ransom in order to teach him a lesson. Celine reluctantly agrees; after all, she’s having an affair with Liz’s spouse, Nick, who fears that his wife will sic a kidnapper on him. Eventually, kidnappers show up at Celine’s advertising agency with a photo of her abducted husband and a simple ransom: She must fast-track a TV ad for TummiTurtle, a pregnancy-monitoring device, and get the product in stores. However, the scheme doesn’t go as planned, resulting in more than one dead body. Book Two finds similarly named Killian Doyle in a similar predicament. Strangers claim they’ve abducted his wife and his daughter; to get them back, he must employ his ad-agency position to meet the same TummiTurtle demand. However, the second book isn’t a mere retelling, as it ultimately goes in an entirely different direction. Doherty, the author of ShamrockSnake (2019), presents an atypical narrative format that’s largely entertaining. Although there’s some repetition—a few scenes in the first half replay in the second nearly verbatim—the characters aren’t predictable, as their motivations and temperaments vary. Both stories are often surprising, but the first features more twists that make it dizzyingly fun. The tales’ conclusions are worlds apart but equally satisfying. Throughout, Doherty shows a knack for vivid, specific details; at one point, for instance, a woman dons “a puddle length grey tweed skirt…a green chunky cable knit top, and a tan cardigan that she was using as a scarf” while also having “arranged her face into what she felt was the correct expression.”
Two stories of crime and deception make for a witty, riveting novel.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 207
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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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