Two dozen tales first collected in 1912 that, whatever their strengths and weaknesses, are nothing like any other detective stories you’ll read this year.
Astro the Seer is not exactly a detective; he’s an Egyptian palm reader and psychic who has a working relationship with the NYPD and a pre-amatory relationship with his blond assistant, Valeska Wynne. Whatever his credentials, he’s consulted by men whose wives have disappeared, parents whose children have been kidnapped, society ladies whose jewels have been stolen, and occasionally the police themselves. But this description doesn’t begin to do justice to the fantastic variety of his cases. Astro is called on to track down a ghost who stalks an old house, to explain a series of strange gifts sent anonymously to a young woman, and to investigate the appearance of a mysterious doppelgänger and the fate of a pair of babies switched at birth. More often than not, the florid premises of these stories are more ingenious than their conclusions, as in “The Lady in Taupe,” which presents an elaborate scheme to steal the manuscript of a playwright’s first novel, and “Mrs. Stellery’s Letters,” which asks who’s been sending love letters to a married woman. From time to time, however, humorist Burgess (1866-1951) either produces an expertly straightforward whodunit like “The Middlebury Murder,” which offers three suspects in the shooting of an architect in his office, or goes full-bore crazy, as in “Vengeance of the Pi Rho Nu,” in which a bridegroom unaccountably vanishes the day before his wedding. Editor Leslie S. Klinger supplies an introduction, a biography, and study questions and reprints Burgess’ own very strange biography of his hero.
Unapologetic exotica to fuel a stroll down Memory Lane.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781728264011
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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A snap of the yo-yo string yanks Harry Bosch out of retirement yet again.
Los Angeles Councilman Jake Pearlman has resurrected the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit in order to reopen the case of his kid sister, Sarah, whose 1994 murder was instantly eclipsed in the press by the O.J. Simpson case when it broke a day later. Since not even a councilor can reconstitute a police unit for a single favored case, Det. Renée Ballard and her mostly volunteer (read: unpaid) crew are expected to reopen some other cold cases as well, giving Bosch a fresh opportunity to gather evidence against Finbar McShane, the crooked manager he’s convinced executed industrial contractor Stephen Gallagher, his wife, and their two children in 2013 and buried them in a single desert grave. The case has haunted Bosch more than any other he failed to close, and he’s fine to work the Pearlman homicide if it’ll give him another crack at McShane. As it turns out, the Pearlman case is considerably more interesting—partly because the break that leads the unit to a surprising new suspect turns out to be both fraught and misleading, partly because identifying the killer is only the beginning of Bosch’s problems. The windup of the Gallagher murders, a testament to sweating every detail and following every lead wherever it goes, is more heartfelt but less wily and dramatic. Fans of the aging detective who fear that he might be mellowing will be happy to hear that “putting him on a team did not make him a team player.”
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-48565-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Categories: MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | POLICE PROCEDURALS | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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A thriller with bloody murders and plenty of suspects and featuring an unlikely partnership between two FBI investigators.
FBI consultant Amos Decker has a lot on his mind. The huge fellow once played for the Cleveland Browns in the NFL until he received a catastrophic brain injury, leaving him with synesthesia; he sees death as electric blue. More pertinent to the plot, he also has hyperthymesia, or spontaneous and highly accurate recall. On the one hand, his memories can be horrible. He’d once come home to find his wife and daughter murdered, dead in pools of blood. Later, he listens helplessly on the telephone while his ex-partner shoots herself in the mouth. On the other hand, his memory helps him solve every case he's given. Now he's sent to Florida with a brand-new partner, Special Agent Frederica White, to investigate the murder of a federal judge. Both partners are pissed at their last-minute pairing, and they immediately see themselves as a bad fit. White is a diminutive Black single mother of two who has a double black belt in karate “because I hate getting my ass kicked.” (The author doesn't mention Decker's race, but since he's being contrasted with his new partner in every way, perhaps readers are expected to see him as White. Clarity would be nice.) Their case is strange: Judge Julia Cummins was stabbed 10 times and her face covered with a mask, while her bodyguard was shot to death. Decker and White puzzle over the “very contrarian crime scene” where two murders seem to have been committed by two different people in the same place. The plot gets complex, with suspects galore. But the interpersonal dynamic between Decker and White is just as interesting as the solution to the murders, which doesn't come easily. At first, they’d like to be done with each other and go their separate ways. But as they work together, their mutual respect rises and—alas—the tension between them fades almost completely. The pair will make a great series duo, especially if a bit of that initial tension between them returns. And Baldacci shouldn’t give Decker a pass on his tortured memories, because readers enjoy suffering heroes. It's not enough that his near-perfect recall helps him in his job.
Fascinating main characters and a clever plot add up to an exciting read.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1982-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
Categories: POLICE PROCEDURALS | SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE
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