For fans whose pulses quicken when they hear that “the very future of British racing was at risk.”
Life once more challenges Sid Halley, ex-jockey and ex-investigator, to turn lemons into lemonade.
You’d think that replacing his prosthetic left hand with a transplanted hand would be great for Sid, but its main consequence is the announcement by his wife, cancer researcher Marina, that she’s so freaked out by the new limb that she’s leaving him—or at least that she’s taking their 9-year-old daughter with her to Holland to care for her dying father and has no particular plans to return. In her absence, the always-moody Sid has nothing better to do than take up arms on behalf of Gary Bremner, a Yorkshire trainer and former jockey whose horse caused the damage to Sid’s hand during a race years ago. Gary is afraid that his stable will be targeted by a mysterious jockeys’ agent who’s not only found more and more creative ways to grab a piece of any transactions between trainers and the jockeys they hire, but who’s begun to dictate which favorites must lose which races. Gary’s absolutely right that defying the trainer, whom he eventually identifies as the sinister Anton Valance, is bad business. Though he miraculously escapes the barn fire that claims three of his horses, he doesn’t escape getting hanged from a tree, providing a news flash to DCI Williams, who’d assumed that Gary had died in that fire. The longer Sid spends poking into the jump-racing world of trainers and jockeys and horses he’s repeatedly tried to walk away from, the more convinced he becomes that Valance has a partner, and identifying that partner becomes his obsession. The inflated but routine mystery accordingly gets less and less mysterious as it goes along, but the horse-racing dope is as fascinating as ever.
For fans whose pulses quicken when they hear that “the very future of British racing was at risk.”Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63910-294-5
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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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