Less detection than baking—but the baking is nearly as urgent as in Mildred Pierce.
The creator of Newark private eye Tamara Hayle dials back the wisecracks and bumps up the paranormal hints to launch a new series featuring a widowed African American realtor whose workplace is a hot mess.
Losing her husband and their baking partnership, D&D Delights, a year ago was a double blow to Odessa Jones. Her job with Risko Realty in the fictional New Jersey suburb of Grovesville hasn’t begun to make up for her losses; as her boss, Charlie Risko, constantly reminds her, she has yet to sell her first house. On the plus side, she has second sight. To the frustration of her Aunt Phoenix, the “glimmer girl” who’s her authority on all things extrasensory, Dessa hasn’t learned to manage her gift. But it does seem that when she smells nutmeg, as she does one day at the office, death is in the air—in this case, the death of Charlie Risko, shot with the gun he was always playfully waving at his agents. There’s no lack of suspects, since Charlie was a tough man to like, and his much younger widow, Tanya, shows up at his memorial service with an array of bruises. The local cops, finding young realtor Harley Wilde’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, promptly arrest him, but Dessa can’t believe he’d pull the trigger despite his bouts of PTSD. Dessa’s no better an amateur sleuth than she is a paranormal conduit, and justice isn’t done until after two more of her colleagues die.
Less detection than baking—but the baking is nearly as urgent as in Mildred Pierce.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2778-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
A tough heroine who refuses to quit uses her own troubled background to crack the case.
A private investigator from Louisville, Kentucky, reluctantly takes a job that may be the death of her.
Annie Gore has hocked her watch again to pay her bills, so when a young man wants help finding his long-vanished sister, she’s glad to take on the job. Max Andrews has long been saving up for Annie’s retainer, and although her resume mentions Air Force service, college degrees, and private security, when he meets her, she’s not what he imagined. Max comes from a small North Carolina mountain town; Annie’s own experiences with a battered mother in a similar town make her well aware of small-town secrets and grudges. Max’s sister, Molly, was one of three girls abducted years ago. In each case, an applehead doll was left at the scene. When Jessica Hoyle, the child of a poor family, vanished, her case aroused little interest. A second girl, Olivia Jacobs, was returned two weeks after being kidnapped, perhaps because she’s autistic. Once Molly was taken, an all-out hunt was launched, and the FBI got involved, but neither she nor Jessica was ever found. Annie doesn’t get a warm greeting in Quartz Creek, and poking around doesn’t increase her popularity. The sheriff, who’s Olivia’s uncle, is hostile, but his deputy is willing to help. One of the first people Annie meets is Susan McKinney, who makes potions and reads cards. Some of the townsfolk think she took the girls because she was moved by the tale of a witch who traded apples to the starving mother of two girls and then turned them into birds. Eventually, Annie turns up so many suspects that she’s almost killed in a meth lab fire and narrowly escapes serious injury from a shooter.
A tough heroine who refuses to quit uses her own troubled background to crack the case.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9781250338686
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
The procedural emphasis continues to set this series apart from other dog mysteries.
A police officer and her canine partner search for a body missing from a gruesome crime scene.
A slasher has executed a St. Valentine’s Day massacre of his own in Fort Worth. A call from Detective Audrey Jackson summons Officer Megan Luz and Brigit, her K-9 teammate, to the scene, a suburban kitchen covered in blood. It’s not the way Megan pictured spending the night of her engagement to Seth, her firefighter boyfriend, but Seth has a dog of his own, and he understands the importance of K-9 teams. When Megan gets to the scene, poor homeowner Shelby Olsen is distraught by the gruesome mess but even more upset that Greg, her loving husband, is missing. She asks Audrey and Megan where Greg could be. The two don’t know how to tell her that, given the blood volume they see, it really doesn’t matter where Greg is any more. Eager to impress her mentor and prove that she’s fit to fill her shoes one day, Megan digs into the case of the apparent murder and the missing body. But all the obvious leads go nowhere, and Megan isn’t sure what’s next. Interspersed chapters adopt the perspectives of the slasher, who’s mainly keeping a low profile at a hotel, and Brigit, who’s equally concerned with tracking the killer and scoring some liver treats. At length Megan’s investigation leads her to the one and only possible conclusion.
The procedural emphasis continues to set this series apart from other dog mysteries.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-19739-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
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