One of the strongest entries yet in this deservedly popular historical series.
Youngest sibling Fleurette takes up sleuthing on her own in the seventh Kopp Sisters adventure.
It opens on a grim note: The sudden death of their brother, Francis, in January 1919 has left the sisters responsible for his pregnant widow, his two older children, and a mountain of debt they had no inkling of. Each of them makes painful sacrifices: Constance gives up her dream job with the FBI in Washington; Norma abandons her plan to live a freer life in Europe; and a bout with scarlet fever has damaged Fleurette’s voice and her nascent stage career. She’s delighted when a lawyer offers her a well-paying gig as a “professional co-respondent,” helping couples who need to prove adultery to get divorced by posing for compromising photos with the husbands. Although nothing even close to adultery occurs, Fleurette knows her sisters would disapprove, and indeed Constance explodes when she finds out. But Fleurette is sick of being told what to do by Constance and storms off; her ignorance of the fact (which readers of previous novels already know) that she is actually Constance’s illegitimate daughter makes their conflict in this volume particularly wrenching. However, the mysterious behavior of one of the lawyer’s clients gets Fleurette involved in what proves to be a confidence scam targeting vulnerable women, and her attempts to bring the wrongdoer to justice land her in jail. Her sisters come to the rescue, each making her individual, forceful contribution to the satisfying resolution of multiple mysteries: Norma’s overbearing nature is instrumental in unravelling Francis’ catastrophic finances; Constance enlists her law enforcement know-how to smooth over Fleurette’s legal troubles. (As usual, Stewart explains in endnotes what in this fact-based story actually happened and what she invented.) It’s a pleasure to watch Fleurette, rather tiresomely vain and self-centered in earlier novels, mature into a strong, independent woman very much in the Kopp mold. As always, Stewart leaves us with the welcome promise of more Kopp sisters adventures to come.
One of the strongest entries yet in this deservedly popular historical series.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-09311-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.
An aspiring mystery writer sets out to solve her great-aunt’s murder and inherit an estate.
Twenty-five-year-old Annie Adams has never met her great-aunt Frances, who prefers her small village to busy London. But when a mysterious letter arrives instructing Annie to come to Castle Knoll in Dorset to meet Frances and discuss her role as sole beneficiary of her great-aunt’s estate, Annie can’t resist. Unfortunately, she arrives to find Frances’ worst fears have come true: The elderly woman—who’s been haunted for decades by a fortuneteller’s prediction that this will happen—has been murdered, and her will dictates that she will leave her entire estate to Annie, but only if Annie solves her killing. It’s a cheeky if not exactly believable premise, especially since the local police don’t seem terribly opposed to it. Annie herself is an engaging presence, if a little too blind to the fact that she could be on the killer’s to-do list. Her roll call of suspects is pleasingly long, including but not limited to the local vicar, a one-time paramour of her great-aunt’s; a gardener who grows a lot more than flowers; shady developers and suspicious friends from Frances’ past; and Saxon, Annie’s crafty rival, who inherits the estate himself if he manages to solve the case first. Annie pieces together clues through readings of Frances’ journal, but the story eventually runs aground on the twin rocks of too much explanation and a flimsy climax. Cute dialogue gives way to lengthy exposition, and by the time Frances’ killer is revealed you may well be ready to leave Annie, Dorset, and Castle Knoll behind for the firmer ground of reality. Fans of cozy mysteries are likely to be more forgiving, but if you cast a skeptical eye toward amateur sleuths, this novel won’t change your mind about them.
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474013
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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