For all its limitations, fans and completists will find Shannon’s debut novel unmissable—or well worth reading again.
A follow-up to a case he shelved as unsolved six months ago sets the LAPD’s Lt. Luis Mendoza on the trail of a double murderer in this reprint from 1960.
This first procedural from the prolific and multibylined Elizabeth Linington (1921-1988), the pioneering writer who first brought a woman’s eye to the genre in volumes published under her own name and the pseudonyms Anne Blaisdell, Lesley Egan, and Egan O’Neill as well as Shannon, kicks off with waitress/seamstress Agnes Browne’s discovery of a corpse in a vacant lot at the corner of Commerce and Humboldt. The victim, Elena Ramirez, has been strangled and battered so savagely that she’s lost an eye—a detail that forcefully recalls the similar bludgeoning of hotel chambermaid Carol Brooks six months ago in East Los Angeles. Cursing himself for his failure to solve the earlier case in time to save her life, Mendoza is determined to close this one. But the challenges are serious. Agnes Browne is hiding a secret she’s afraid to share; so is 13-year-old Martin Lindstrom, whose father is only the latest Angelino to desert his family; and Dick Morgan, another good cop, is being squeezed so hard by a blackmailer that he’s seriously contemplating a murder of his own. The author dexterously solicits your sympathy for them all as she follows the natty Mendoza, who’s beginning his long-lasting romance with Alison Weir, from one dead-end neighborhood to the next. Editor Leslie Klinger supplies a judicious introduction and a series of footnotes that explain period details, gloss Mendoza’s sometimes fractured Spanish, and incongruously compare Mendoza to Klinger’s deepest love, Sherlock Holmes.
For all its limitations, fans and completists will find Shannon’s debut novel unmissable—or well worth reading again.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4642-1301-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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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