The more attached you are to this standout franchise, the harder the final revelations will hit you.
Someone seems to have declared a vendetta against London’s Metropolitan Police, and it’s up to DI Tom Thorne and his mates to find out who—that is, if he can actually trust his mates.
The arrest of Nick Cresswell for murder is utterly routine until the sequel: Four officers from Wood Green who made the pinch acting on Thorne’s intelligence celebrate by sharing some doughnuts left in the back of their car with a cheery note—“Thanks for everything you do!”—and end up poisoned, three of them fatally. The stabbing of PC Adam Callaghan in Hendon Park moments after he’d turned off his bodycam to avoid showing the woman who’d lured him there makes it clear that there’s a larger pattern at work. More deaths will follow, presumably at the hands of LoveMyBro, the dark-web habitué who called PC Christopher Tully, one of the doughnut victims, and PC Craig Knowles, now imprisoned for rape, “two peas in a pod.” But who is LoveMyBro? Is he an antirapist vigilante or a rapist himself? And how can he possibly have learned everything he must know in order to strike so many targets without leaving a trace? Working once more with pathologist Phil Hendricks, his partner DI Nicola Tanner, and his old friend DI Dave Holland, who’s back at the Met after a few years away, Thorne fights colleagues and regulations to build a case against the man he’s convinced is behind the mayhem, only to see it collapse in a spectacularly depressing way. Even more disturbing is the growing likelihood that their quarry is either getting assistance from a highly placed police officer or is such an officer himself.
The more attached you are to this standout franchise, the harder the final revelations will hit you.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780802164582
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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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