Of all Carr’s many celebrated puzzles, this one most closely resembles a magic trick. Be prepared to be royally hoodwinked.
Seeing isn’t believing in this diabolically clever tale of poisoning first published in the U.S. as The Problem of the Green Capsule in 1939.
Weeks after someone in the village of Sodbury Cross has added strychnine to some chocolate creams in a sweet shop, killing one child and sickening several others, wealthy peach grower Marcus Chesney, convinced that eyewitnesses to anything are unreliable, stages a brief midnight scene designed both to present his theory of the poisoning and to pull the wool over the eyes of his own three witnesses: Marjorie Wills, his niece and unofficial ward; George Harding, the suitor she met during a recent trip abroad; and Gilbert Ingram, a retired professor of psychology. Before any of them has a chance to start writing down answers to the 10 apparently innocent questions Marcus has asked them about the theater piece they’ve just seen, Marcus keels over, poisoned by a cyanide-filled capsule his unidentified co-star popped into his mouth just before the lights came up. Marcus’ brother, Dr. Joe Chesney, returns from a late-night house call just in time to pronounce him dead; Wilbur Emmet, the manager of Marcus’ nurseries and the man most likely to have been Marcus’ accomplice and assassin, lies unconscious in the yard outside. The three witnesses contradict each other about absolutely everything, but the biggest surprise awaits the moment that the ever-reliable Dr. Gideon Fell, on whom baffled DI Andrew Elliot calls for help, shows the witnesses the film that Marcus had asked George to make of what turned out to be his very last moments.
Of all Carr’s many celebrated puzzles, this one most closely resembles a magic trick. Be prepared to be royally hoodwinked.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781464216329
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.
Lt. Eve Dallas’ 63rd futuristic case is less a whodunit than a manhunt for an unusually sympathetic killer.
Thirteen years ago, way back in 2048, scientific genius Steve Redman—father of the Banner-Wyst corporation’s Rainmaker Project—narrowly escaped death in a gas explosion that killed his pregnant wife and infant son and 200 other residents of their New York City apartment building the night before he planned to report his suspicions about the company to the FBI. Now the bill is coming due for Banner-Wyst. The first death to be discovered is that of Lawrence Chu, Redman’s colleague and trusted friend, whose tenure as director of bioengineering science ends when he’s beaten to death. For quite a while, Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, know less about this mystery than their readers do. But when Ezra Dent, a consultant to Banner-Wyst who worked with Redman and Chu back in the day, is murdered in exactly the same ferocious way, Dallas and Peabody, with help from Roarke, Dallas’ tech-billionaire husband, promptly put the pieces together and determine who they’re looking for. The search for Redman, who went AWOL from his hospital bed without a trace six years ago, has its own challenges. So does Dallas’ attempt to get cooperation from partners Calvin Banner and Jacob Wyst, who are clearly in the crosshairs of a killer who seems a lot less monstrous than they are. If the breaks in the case are suspiciously convenient in arriving, readers can pride themselves on taking sides against a mega-corporation whose self-avowed ecological saintliness is undermined by its leaders’ underhanded dealing.
A satisfying thriller that will warm the hearts of fans who already take comfort in hating the forces of evil.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414564
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.
It takes a quirky sleuth to solve a baffling closed-door murder.
The author himself or, more accurately, some version of him, walks the reader through a “gruesome murder” that occurred in a rural farming village. At the center of the crime is the wealthy Ichiyanagi family, including the widow Itoko and her five children. The “heinous crime” occurs in the evening after the festive wedding of eldest son Kenzo to schoolteacher Katsuko. Yokomizo, part narrator and part raconteur, liberally shares digressions such as the fact that his favorite British author is A.A. Milne, who wrote The Red House Mystery as well as the books about Winnie-the-Pooh. Written in 1946 but set in 1937 before the devastation of World War II, this is the first novel featuring Kosuke Kindaichi, the legendary detective who appeared in more than 70 stories by Yokomizo. If Yokomizo is the Japanese Agatha Christie, Kindaichi may seem the Japanese Hercule Poirot—although actually, given his unkempt hair and apparently distracted manner, he’s more a cross between Poirot and Columbo. Shrewdly, his entrance is delayed until midway through the novel, after the police have stalled and both the family and the reader are anxious for a solution. The narrator’s garrulous charm, in a mystery long on logistics and forensic clues but short on detailed character portraits or extended interactions, is a key to the novel’s success, leavening the more intricate pieces of the puzzle. Armchair detectives will welcome the helpful character list that precedes the story.
The delightful debut of a classic, prolific detective.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781805336549
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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