A stellar sophomore outing for an intriguing detective.
DI Caius Beauchamp of London’s Metropolitan Police tackles two cold cases in Vassell’s second novel—which, like The Other Half (2023), blends crime solving with a skewering of Britain’s class system.
In this smart, provocative novel, we’re again privy to Beauchamp’s detecting skills as well as his personal life as a biracial Londoner who can’t seem to avoid the snobby, sometimes racist, members of Britain’s aristocracy. Thirty years ago, a multimillion-pound pension fund was stolen and the culprits were never found. Now, a woman tied to the case is found drowned in the Thames, and the case is reopened. Meanwhile, Caius is reexamining the disappearance of a teenager from a boarding school 15 years before. There are no clues to work with, but the abuse the students endured there is coming to light. Vassell perfectly constructs a classic crime procedural against a backdrop of racism, sexism, and classism. Beauchamp is a winning character readers will adore. Equally charming is Callie Foster, a bespoke milliner for whom Beauchamp is falling hard. She’s sweet and naïve, in stark contrast to the variety of bitter and selfish characters. In a nod to The Other Half, Vassell brings back the sexual predator whom Beauchamp pursued in that novel, a man who, because of his upper-crust connections, was able to avoid consequences. Now he’s pursuing Callie, and this plot thread adds a satisfying bit of suspense. Readers don’t need to have read The Other Half to enjoy this intriguing novel, but reading both is as satisfying as pairing a cup of Earl Grey and a lavender biscuit. In the final pages, Vassell lays the groundwork for a third installment that promises to be as enjoyable as the ones that preceded it.
A stellar sophomore outing for an intriguing detective.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593685976
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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