For many book lovers, summer vacations mean unwinding on an idyllic beach with yellow umbrellas and blue pedal boats and savoring a mystery novel. Inspired by Kenneth Branagh’s recent film, Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie fans might revisit her classics starring the brilliant Hercule Poirot. But mystery buffs may prefer other titles with indefatigable detectives. Kirkus Indie recently reviewed three novels about heinous murders and quirky sleuths.
Laura Giebfried and Stanley R. Wells’ The Marlowe Murders, set in 1955, features graduate student Alexandra Durant. She must figure out who killed John Marlowe, a psychology professor and the heir to a mansion and private island off Maine’s coast. The suspects include all 12 people on snowy Exeter Island. Alexandra needs to use her photographic memory to unmask the culprit. “A fun, inventive murder mystery set on a wintry Atlantic island,” our reviewer writes.
George Albert Brown’s Who Killed Jerusalem? focuses on a famous San Francisco poet and artist in 1977. Ickey Jerusalem lies dead in a first-class cabin’s bathroom on a 747. Insurance claims adjuster Dedalus “Ded” Smith, who is on the same plane, ends up helping the police detective assigned to the homicide case. Brown, a “lifelong devotee of William Blake,” based the mystery on Blake’s ideas and characters. Our critic calls the book “a zany, inventive, and multilayered fever dream of murder and mayhem.”
Private investigator Jim Guthrie navigatesKentucky’s Derby Week festivities as he searches for a killer in Rick Neumayer’s Hotwalker. Guatemalan immigrant Carlos Rojas, a Churchill Downs employee who walks horses after a race or workout, hires Guthrie to find out who murdered his father. The gumshoe teams up with the publisher of a racing newsletter. According to our reviewer, Neumayer offers “adelightful whodunit with a remarkable hero and sublime Southern setting.”
Myra Forsberg is an Indie editor.
