Heavy on cream and light on plot, this trio is most likely to appeal to fans of eggnog and coastal Maine.
Three tales of mayhem-by-eggnog penned by Maine boosters Ross, Hollis, and Meier.
Hollis and Meier go full-throttle, with victims succumbing to shock after chugging the holiday treat. In Meier’s novella, which furnishes the collection’s title, nut-allergic Dorcas Philpott meets her end after drinking eggnog made with almond milk. Reporter Lucy Stone (British Manor Murder, 2016, etc.) has little sympathy for the deceased since the greedy cow shouldn’t have been drinking anything that fattening to begin with. (Hearty appetites are acceptable only for the svelte Stones, who spend much of the holiday complaining about eldest daughter Elizabeth, home from her job in Paris, who wants to feed the family tiny French-style meals.) But Lucy fears that the fatal bottle of eggnog may have been meant for her friend Phyllis Lundgren’s husband, Wilf, so she investigates anyway. The victim in Hollis’ Death by Eggnog is even less appealing than Dorcas. Librarian Agatha Farnsworth browbeats employees, threatens patrons, and terrorizes children until she’s dispatched by eggnog containing real milk, which triggers her dairy allergy. Hayley Powell (Death of a Pumpkin Carver, 2016, etc.) hunts Farnsworth’s killer, who proves considerably more devious than the food critic would have imagined. In Nogged Off, Ross gives readers a welcome break from anaphylaxis. Imogen Geinkes doesn’t kill anyone with her concoction; she just gives all her co-workers food poisoning. Out of a job, Imogen can’t take over the lease on Julia Snowden’s New York apartment. But she does persuade gentle Julia (Fogged Inn, 2016, etc.) to bring her home to spend the holiday in Busman’s Harbor. The trip proves chaotic and ultimately deadly, but quick-thinking Julia finally restores order.
Heavy on cream and light on plot, this trio is most likely to appeal to fans of eggnog and coastal Maine.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0447-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...
A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.
Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk.
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
