An amusingly quirky read that might have benefited from a stronger edit.
A comedic murder mystery set on a college campus in upstate New York stars an offbeat heroine with an active imagination.
Twenty-nine-year-old Ruby Roy is an associate professor at Baron University’s College of Business, located not far from Niagara Falls. She’s the well-traveled only child of an Indian diplomat father and a Canadian mother, and she holds several postgraduate degrees from various prestigious universities. She also has a history of awkward moments and embarrassing incidents, due largely to bad luck and social anxiety. Now she’s working to get tenure at Baron, while her husband, Cleo, is attempting to create his first video game. Ruby is mostly happy at the university, where she has a coterie of eclectic international friends among the faculty. One evening, she returns to her office to retrieve a forgotten backpack and decides to say hello to her department chair, Dr. Peter Malcolm; instead, she discovers him sitting in his office chair, mouth agape and eyes staring lifelessly. A knife handle protrudes from his bloody chest. Then someone hits her on the head and knocks her unconscious. She wakes up in an ambulance and is questioned by police detective Chris Jones. Although badly shaken, Ruby is a fan of British detective shows and American TV police procedurals, and she soon feels compelled to investigate the murder herself. The narrative has all the right ingredients for an intriguing whodunit. However, Ray often chooses humor over suspense, indulging in numerous digressions and cartoonishly exaggerated characters. Many pages are filled with Ruby’s busy, fanciful interior musings, which draw on the tropes of action-hero adventures and Indian romantic musicals. It’s often a fun romp that occasionally borders on slapstick. It does lack a certain restraint, though; Ray tends to overexplain celebrity references that most will find obvious, and Ruby’s dream sequences are too lengthy. Still, the mystery builds to an exciting climax, and there’s an unexpected final twist.
An amusingly quirky read that might have benefited from a stronger edit.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 979-8793362641
Page Count: 232
Publisher: BMB Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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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