An exciting psychic mystery best enjoyed by veterans who’ve read all the previous entries in both series.
White's second Royal Street book, a spinoff of her bestselling Tradd Street series, continues the tradition of haunted houses, evil ghosts, and fraught romances.
Nola Trenholm has recently moved from Charleston to New Orleans, and her father, author Jack Trenholm, and stepmother, Melanie, whose ability to communicate with the dead has produced many scary moments, are coming to visit soon along with her 12-year-old half siblings, Sarah and JJ. They want to see the historic haunted home Nola has recently purchased. In the meantime, she’s living in an apartment with her dog, Mardi, and Jolene McKenna, a Southern belle with many talents. Nola has a complicated relationship with old friend and current contractor Beau Ryan, whose sister Sunny, kidnapped more than 20 years ago, has just found her way back to her family. Beau hates to admit that, like his presumably dead mother, he can communicate with ghosts. He and his girlfriend, Sam, have created a podcast debunking psychics. Beau wants revenge after uncovering the truth about Sunny’s kidnapping, which was arranged by the late Antoine Broussard, whose evil deeds live on. Nola, whose new house is haunted by both Beau’s grandfather and Broussard’s malignant spirit, soon finds herself attracted to three different men: Beau; Michael Hebert, who broke her heart after starting a romance with her to help conceal his Broussard relatives’ misdeeds; and her first love, Cooper Ravenel, who’s just moved to New Orleans. Both Sunny and Sam beg her to renew her former friendship with Michael in order to infiltrate the Broussard family and get answers to some of their many questions. Nola’s sister Sarah, who has psychic abilities, helps them track down clues in what turns out to be a dangerous case that could ruin many lives.
An exciting psychic mystery best enjoyed by veterans who’ve read all the previous entries in both series.Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9780593334621
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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