Far too much of a good thing.
Lupica, having already continued the sagas of Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone, takes the helm for the latest adventure of Parker’s signature sleuth, with mixed results.
“Laura Crain might have been the first dead client I ever had,” Boston shamus Spenser reflects after his psychologist lover Susan Silverman’s friend is found strangled in a Brookline park shortly after hiring him to find out what’s bugging her husband. Whatever it is must be big, because scientist Andrew Crain’s mastery of a process to produce synthetic lithium has made him the sixth-wealthiest man in the U.S., and when do billionaires ever have bad days? Spenser tries to question entrepreneur Ethan Lowe, Crain’s best friend and partner in Lith, Inc.; Crain’s executive assistant, Claire Megill; and even Crain himself. But they’re a closemouthed bunch, and Crain actually runs out of a restaurant dinner he and Laura are having with Spenser and Susan. That’s the last Spenser sees of Laura, and Crain seriously threatens his own company (which Lowe is hoping to steer into a lucrative takeover by a Canadian automaker) by disappearing, returning just in time to give a highly uninformative press conference and then firing Spenser, whom he’d never hired. Feeling honor-bound to get to the bottom of the mystery that so exercised his client, Spenser keeps on the case without pay, pausing only for repeated coyly described bouts of sex with Susan, and ends up uncovering enough skullduggery for two installments of this beloved franchise. This time, though, Lupica’s addiction to multiplying subplots not only bulks up a tale that could have been slenderer but turns the big reveal into an endless series of confrontations with different malefactors to whom Spenser dispenses condign justice.
Far too much of a good thing.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780593540244
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 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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