Theater lore, plenty of suspects, and a soupçon of witchy activity add up to a delightful puzzle.
The curse of the Scottish Play claims new victims.
Actress Diana Hunt’s new production of Macbeth is plagued with so many annoying incidents that some cast members blame them on witchcraft. The group is rehearsing in a decrepit London theater and staying in the hotel next door, both of which the play’s backers own. Richard Sutton, the director who’s set the play in the future, has just come off the fantastically successful run of a musical based on The Swiss Family Robinson, and the entire cast is primed for fame and fortune if his new endeavor succeeds. Since the Holy Terrors—that is, Diana and her boyfriend, Bishop Alistair Kincaid—have a reputation for solving murders with ghostly undertones, Diana calls on Bish to help uncover the human saboteur. Bish slowly meets the cast and crew, many of whom are spooked by misdeeds they fear could turn dangerous. First, King Duncan's throne is sabotaged, though luckily the man himself is not badly hurt. Next, Banquo is wounded when a prop dirk—a kind of knife—is sabotaged. The producers continue to support the play despite a series of ever more nasty and dangerous tricks, including the encirclement of Diana with a ring of fire. Someone knows the backstage area well enough to pull tricks and avoid capture, but when the actor playing Lennox is poisoned right before their eyes, the sabotage turns deadly, and Bish, Diana, and the police, who don’t believe in witchcraft, must dig deeply into possible motives to catch a clever killer.
Theater lore, plenty of suspects, and a soupçon of witchy activity add up to a delightful puzzle.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781448313532
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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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