A plucky, likable protagonist buoys this agreeably twisty thriller with a neatly packaged ending.
A private detective hired to find a young girl who vanished from an upscale children’s home soon discovers that the case is not at all as it appears in Miller’s mystery.
Hazel Cho, a 30-year-old private detective who’s about to go under if she can’t quickly drum up some more business, seems to have her dreams answered when Madeline Hemsley offers her $100,000 to find her goddaughter, 12-year-old Mia Thomas. The young girl seemingly vanished from St. Agnes, a private orphanage for children who have lost their parents or are experiencing other “family issues.” Mia disappeared three months ago, and Madeline refuses to let Hazel, who’s given a deadline of less than two weeks, to talk to any of the previous P.I.s who have worked the case. Desperate for the money, Hazel agrees to take the job and quickly becomes enmeshed in the curious world of St. Agnes as she interviews its eclectic faculty and staff, including the friendly administrator, Sonia Barreto, the ancient headmaster, Thomas Mackenzie, and the nervous choir teacher, Gregory Goolsbee. While attempting to gather clues at the orphanage’s fundraiser gala, Hazel is unexpectedly swept off her feet by Andrew DuPont, the son of a big-name donor. But the more people Hazel talks to, the less certain she becomes about anything that’s going on. Apparently, Mia was not the first girl to vanish at St. Agnes, the local police force seems suspiciously unhelpful, and Hazel becomes convinced that most of the people she talks to are flat-out lying to her. A shocking revelation midway through the book primes readers for even more twists and turns before Hazel finally learns the horrifying truth.
Hazel’s narration, which often directly addresses the reader, remains breezy and casual despite the increasingly grim subject matter that arises as the plot unfolds. Her humor grants some much-needed levity to the proceedings, such as her description of her fellow Korean American roommate: “He reminds me of an Asian Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, except without the sailor hat.” She also has moments of surprising insight, as when a client accuses her of doctoring photos that prove his wife’s infidelity: “Every day I feel like I’m one wrong move away from being throttled by an impotent man and his insecurity.” Hazel’s likability goes a long way toward smoothing over some of the novel’s bumps, which mainly consist of continuity errors that could have been caught with a tighter edit(a character says she was 17 when an event happened, then mentions that she was 16 when the event happened just one page later, for example). Miller does an effective job of throwing enough red herrings into the mix to keep readers on their toes, although devoted thriller readers will likely figure out at least some of the mysteries before the end. The story wraps up with a somewhat hokey “the villain conveniently explains their whole dastardly plan” scene—but that misstep is countered by yet another surprising revelation. Overall, Miller has crafted a suspenseful tale with quick pacing, naturalistic dialogue, and an endearing narrative voice that will likely leave fans of the genre more than satisfied.
A plucky, likable protagonist buoys this agreeably twisty thriller with a neatly packaged ending.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781737646396
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houndstooth Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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