A modern take on the Bluebeard fairy tale, complete with a chamber of horrors.
Fans seeing this title and this author’s name on the same cover will know to expect anything but the celebration of a happy marriage.
Yet Dinah and Joe Marino really are happy together. She’s a homicide detective with the LAPD; he’s a psychologist who left the police to open his own clinic. They may not have much of a sex life, but they’re so mindful, attentive, and solicitous of each other that, as Dinah says, “He’s the best part of my life, and I’m the best part of his.” So what if Dinah’s been hiding an easily guessed secret from Joe for all eight years of their marriage? So what if Joe wonders what it would be like to kill Dinah the way he’s killed those other women? After all, he’s not at all inclined to do it because she’s the perfect wife. The first cracks in their ice castle appear when Dinah, still mourning the death of her partner, Det. Oley Hugh, is assigned to investigate the death of Reese Bishop and learns that trainee detective Freddie Hodgkins will be tagging along with her. Freddie is full of ideas about the manner of Reese’s death—she seems to have overdosed months before she would have died of natural causes—and the disappearance of her daughter, Jessica, who never showed up at Chunky Mike’s, the ice cream parlor where she works. In fact, Jessica, whose point of view alternates with Dinah’s and Joe’s in a series of chapters as short and biting as lightning strikes, has descended into a hell that will eventually reveal unspeakable secrets about Dinah and Joe’s happy marriage.
A modern take on the Bluebeard fairy tale, complete with a chamber of horrors.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781662519598
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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