An intriguing, tense, and entertaining read, with a sturdy female protagonist.
When a young female welder dies in a shipyard accident, a reporter suspects foul play in Blanton-Stroud’s mystery novel.
On Saturday, November 7, 1942, the Lowe Shipyard in Richmond, California is buzzing with excitement. Owner Adam Lowe is about to announce a contest, a challenge for his workers to build the next Liberty Ship in less than one week, beating the 10-day record recently set by the Lowe Portland shipyard up north. Plus, Adam has just hired, for the first time, women welders for the Richmond yard. This second part of the announcement is met with decidedly less enthusiasm. Jane Benjamin, gossip columnist for the local San Francisco Prospect, is there to cover the event. As the ceremony draws to a close, whistles and a horn sound from Yard Two of the complex. Jane follows her instincts and runs toward the whistle. There she sees the lifeless body of a young woman, Jeannie Lyons, her hand curled around a welding wand (“She lay at the base of a U-shaped concrete deck, facing the watery bays where five partly built ships lined up, the middle bay empty, like a missing tooth”). The death is declared to be work-related, resulting from carelessness and inexperience. Ambitious and intrepid, Jane has an idea to patriotically promote the replacement of soon-to-be-drafted male workers with women who can contribute to the war effort. The shipyard will run a contest to select a poster girl—Wendy the Welder—and Jane will have a career-boosting story. This third volume in the Jane Benjamin series gradually builds its way into an action-packed thriller as Jane races to uncover the nefarious doings at the shipyard before she becomes one of the victims. Intermingled with the sinister plotline are the politics, prejudices, and societal restrictions of the period, issues that lamentably still have currency. Appearances by notorious columnist Hedda Hopper add a realistic touch to the media frenzy, as well as some satisfying levity. Lively prose, enjoyably edgy dialogue, and a delightful, unconventional, feminist heroine add up to a captivating page-turner.
An intriguing, tense, and entertaining read, with a sturdy female protagonist.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781647425937
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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