The busiest, saddest, untidiest village mystery ever.
Retired Det. Superintendent Henry Christie, taken off the shelf again to question a suspect who won’t speak to anyone else, finds himself investigating a rash of crimes committed before he was born.
When Celia Twain discovers her husband’s corpse only a few hours after she’d publicly threatened to kill him over his adultery, the Kendleton constabulary are naturally interested. Since Celia refuses to talk to anyone but Henry, who’s been around forever, DS Rik Dean offers him 500 pounds for a day’s work getting her statement, which naturally doesn’t include a confession of murder. Meantime, things have heated up dramatically in the village. Although James Twain had plenty of enemies, the news that he was a business partner of Marcus Durham, whose bullet-riddled body was recently found in his own swimming pool, strongly suggests that the same person may have killed them both. A group of young toughs have attacked wheelchair-bound Veronica Gough, and one of them has tried to drown her. Then several of them break into her house, and one of them threatens her with violence, triggering her memory of her rape by another villager during the celebrations of VE-Day in 1945. The more closely Henry, now awarded the nonce title of Civilian Senior Investigating Officer, looks into the past, the more convinced he becomes that Veronica’s memories may hold the key to a pair of unsolved murders committed even earlier, back in 1941. As DS Debbie Blackstone, Henry’s old boss in the Lancaster Cold Case Unit, observes, “It’s all about people taking things from other people.” Even as Henry is making arrests, Oldham continues to multiply complications in the final chapter, and the story ends with quite a cliffhanger.
The busiest, saddest, untidiest village mystery ever.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-44830-694-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Smart, edgy, and entertaining as heck.
Against her better judgment, Lucy Chase returns to her hometown of Plumpton, Texas, for her grandmother’s birthday, knowing full well that almost everyone in town still believes she murdered her best friend five years ago, when they were in their early 20s.
Coincidentally—or is it?—Ben Owens, a true-crime podcaster, is also in town, interviewing Lucy’s family and former friends about the murder of Savannah Harper, “just the sweetest girl you ever met,” who died from several violent blows to the head. Lucy was found hours later covered in blood, with no memory of what happened. She was—and is—a woman with secrets, which has not endeared her to the people of Plumpton; their narrative is that she was always violent, secretive, difficult. But Ben wants to tell Lucy’s story; attractive and relentless, he uncovers new evidence and coaxes new interviews, and people slowly begin to question whether Lucy is truly guilty. Lucy, meanwhile, lets down her guard, and as she and Ben draw closer together, she has to finally face the truth of her past and unmask the murderer of her complicated, gorgeous, protective friend. Most of the novel is told from Lucy’s point of view, which allows for a natural unspooling of the layers of her life and her story. She’s strong, she’s prickly, and we gradually begin to understand just how wronged she has been. The story is a striking commentary on the insular and harmful nature of small-town prejudice and how women who don’t fit a certain mold are often considered outliers, if not straight-up villains. Tintera is smart to capitalize on how the true-crime podcast boom informs and infuses the current fictional thriller scene; she’s also effective at writing action that transcends the podcast structure.
Smart, edgy, and entertaining as heck.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781250880314
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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