The worst thing about working as a dentist’s receptionist is that it just never ends. Even after Mimsie Crane discovers her boss, Edward Chambers, stripped and strapped to his own dental chair, his privates adorned with a bunch of daffodils and the walls festooned with anatomically descriptive graffiti, and he hastily offers her a month’s salary in lieu of notice on the condition that she keep mum about the affair, she still can’t shake off its fallout. Though the money buys her a five-week Mediterranean vacation, the cushion isn’t big enough to keep blustering Arif Khan from materializing on her return, wanting to know what’s become of Edward Chambers and threatening her if she doesn’t tell him. But Mimsie can’t tell him: Chambers has simply vanished, presumably drowned, according to his grim sister Phoebe; and Mimsie, thoroughly intimidated by Khan, is only too happy to elude him by taking an unlikely post safely outside London, courtesy of her frequent employer-of-last-resort, builder Steve Epps. Using Mimsie’s gift of gab and the nurse’s uniform Chambers had her buy, Steve insinuates her into the household of retired cruise-ship captain Toby Quinn, caught between grieving for his late wife and resisting his rapacious niece’s plans to consign him to a nursing home and grab his assets. The day that Mimsie finds Captain Quinn dead is also the day she learns Chambers’s ex-nurse Lynne Peters has been strangled. But don’t expect any closer connection between the two halves of this odd hodgepodge. Armstrong (The Wrong Road, p. 306, etc.) this time seems to be modeling herself on lesser Agatha Christie—They Came to Baghdad, say—with prose as cluttered as her plot.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7278-2229-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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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