A deft touch with characterization, plenty of suspects, and a nostalgic look at the Catskills in the 1950s add up to a fun...
This follow-up to Elizabeth Grady’s exciting debut in Deadly Summer Nights (2021) returns to Haggerman’s Catskill Resort, which Elizabeth is desperate to turn into a success during the height of the Borscht Belt’s popularity as a summer haven for New Yorkers.
The finances of Elizabeth’s famous mother, former dancer Olivia Peters, depend on Haggerman’s, which Elizabeth manages as Olivia thrills the guests with an occasional appearance. A welcome infusion of cash and cachet arrives with a Hollywood movie shoot. Gloria Grant, one of the stars and an old friend of Olivia’s, stays with her; the rest of the cast and crew opt for the larger, better-known Kennelwood Hotel. Despite irascible director Elias Theropodous’ temper tantrums, things go smoothly enough despite all the behind-the-scenes backbiting and romances—until Elias dies in the hospital after attending a dinner party at Haggerman’s, sparking rumors that something he ate there made him sick. Only the fact that no one else has taken ill helps Elizabeth keep her kitchen open and the police at bay. Feeling that she has no choice, Elizabeth, who’s worried that her friend Velvet will get seduced by the production’s handsome male lead, finds time for some serious detective work, getting a friendly reporter to do research for her while he covers the crime. Elias had plenty of enemies, and it’s quite a challenge for Elizabeth to continue running the resort while hunting a killer.
A deft touch with characterization, plenty of suspects, and a nostalgic look at the Catskills in the 1950s add up to a fun read.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-33439-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Armstrong’s new twist on her Rockton franchise scores higher as wilderness adventure than as mystery.
The idealistic attempt to carve a new town out of the Yukon snow runs into criminal complications that threaten to reduce the tiny population to zero.
Det. Casey Butler has every reason to be deeply invested in Haven’s Rock. She and her husband, Rockton Sheriff Eric Dalton, have financed the new settlement, breaking away from the marginally more established refuge of Rockton, with money Casey inherited. Her eventful history with Rockton makes her eager for the new town, whose every resident will be hand-picked by Dalton and her, to succeed. So she’s alarmed to learn that three of those residents ignored the place’s paramount rule—don’t go into the forest—and only one of them returned. Yolanda the contractor, last spotted walking into the woods with Bruno the engineer, is back safe and sound, but finding Bruno will become the top priority of Casey and Dalton and their canine and human cohort. Soon after he’s rescued, Bruno goes AWOL from his hospital bed without more than hinting at what happened in the forest, and this time he turns up dead. Even worse, Penny, the architect who followed Yolanda and Bruno when she first saw them walking away from the town in progress, remains missing, presumed dead—until Casey and Dalton find a dead woman who turns out to be Denise, the second wife of Mark, a prospective resident who’s on a secret mission of his own. Few readers will be able to name any of the suspects an hour after putting this spinoff down, but they’ll still be shivering with cold.
Armstrong’s new twist on her Rockton franchise scores higher as wilderness adventure than as mystery.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781250865410
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Sorry, Sherlock. Detective work has nothing on the perils of costume design.
Murder and a host of lesser but more time-consuming complications dog the production of costumer Joey Jessop’s latest film project.
An unknown woman running from a restaurant is struck and killed by a silver Lexus SUV. It’s a painful moment for everyone involved, but especially for Joey, who’d seen the woman dragged and chased out of the restaurant kitchen minutes earlier by a cook and another menacing man and hadn’t said anything about it. Tyrone Thomas, the head of the studio producing The Golden Age, which is filming nearby, is less interested in encouraging his crew to cooperate with the police than in making sure no whiff of bad publicity touches his stars. And so much intrigue swirls around leading lady Gillian Best—from her quarrel with personal assistant Rita Ranucci to her hush-hush exchange with personal manager Dan Lomax to her unpublicized relationship with personal videographer Armand Dubois—that keeping it all under wraps is likely to be a full-time job. But not for Joey, whose full-time job, once costume designer Gregory Bentham is called back to England by his husband’s illness and the production’s deal with boutique Italian costume manufacturer Bergati falls through, is arranging for the last-minute design and construction of hundreds of World War I–era costumes for a movie whose story McCown, intent on the worm’s-eye view, never bothers to share. Another violent death will provide a sop to genre fans, but this is really a relentlessly detailed account of the thousands of obstacles to producing a movie.
Sorry, Sherlock. Detective work has nothing on the perils of costume design.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781639106646
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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