A keen knowledge of spy thrillers and detective stories fuels Lin’s excellent investigation into matchmaking apps.
When a client dies unexpectedly, professional verifier Claudia Lin and her business partner explore the possibility that certain dating apps may be offering customers more than they bargained for.
At the beginning of Pek’s excellent follow-up to The Verifiers (2022), Claudia—murder-mystery maven and committed New York City cyclist—and her business partner, Becks, welcome a new client, Mason Perry. The two women, together with tech superexpert Squirrel, comprise a tiny detective agency, Veracity, that specializes in investigating people on dating apps and discovering whether they’re telling the truth about themselves. Perry—“projecting a forcefield of confidence that a ballistic missile would bounce right off of” while being ill-informed enough not to realize there was a series of Perry Mason books before the TV show—asks them to look into his latest potential date, Amalia Suarez. But faster than you can say “dead client,” the verifiers find themselves investigating the possibility that dating apps are creating manipulated personas for nefarious purposes. Ratcheting up the tension, Claudia’s brother may also be in danger. As Claudia and Becks explore a potential “far-reaching corporate conspiracy to control the hearts and minds of the online public,” Pek has glorious fun with a cornucopia of references to both classic mystery tropes and espionage thrillers. Claudia takes her life guidance directly and very seriously from literature, and may have met her match in Amalia, who wrote a prize-winning college paper comparing Latin American and Japanese magical realism through the fictional detectives of Jorge Luis Borges and Haruki Murakami. Tangling with intriguing techies while juggling challenging family dynamics and her growing attractions to both Amalia and Becks, Claudia has her hands—and her heart—beyond full.
A keen knowledge of spy thrillers and detective stories fuels Lin’s excellent investigation into matchmaking apps.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593470152
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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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