Author

Brian Kenney

Review

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust

by Brian Kenney

First things first: Quigley’s sophomore effort is every bit as witty, character-driven, and well-plotted as last year’s Six Feet Deep Dish. As always, Geneva Bay, Wisconsin chef and pizzeria owner Delilah O’Leary has a few too many things going on. She’s hoping to win the “Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest, but can’t quite get the recipe exactly right. Her BFF and sous chef, Sonya, is having an affair with none other than the wife of a celebrity chef. And as luck would have it, he’s the judge for the competition. Bad timing! Meanwhile, her pit bull of a great-aunt is suddenly throwing a lot of shade her way. With no explanations. Even Butterball, the cat she shares with her ex-fiancé, wants out. But when visiting the new juice bar—owned by her ex’s annoying girlfriend—she witnesses one of the customers keel over, likely dead from a poisoned smoothie. And before you can say Pretzel Crust Deep-Dish Bratwurst Pizza, Delilah is drawn into some very risky goings-on. The satire is a joy, Delilah’s narration is sheer pleasure, and her restaurant crew provides plenty of balance. This is turning out to be one of the best new cozy series going.

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Review

Relentless Melt

by Brian Kenney

A supernatural mystery—part Stranger Things, part Enola Homes, but very much itself—set in 1909 Boston. Young Artie Quick, a Filene’s basement “shopgirl” by day, is fascinated by criminal behavior and signs up to study Criminal Investigation at the YMCA’s Evening Institute for Men. One problem? Artie is a young woman, and to pass, she has to adopt male drag and attempt to alter her voice. While she still lives with her working-class family, most of her time she’s at well-off Theodore’s digs—her charming if awkward best friend. Theodore is as obsessed with magic as Artie is with crime, and the two take on a case: the investigation into unnatural screams heard at night in the Boston Common by homeless men and petty criminals. What seems like a minor quest ends up taking the two on a sojourn that reveals the abduction of young women, a cover-up by city officials, and the existence of a spirit underneath the city, ready to wield even greater destruction. This book is way, way over the top—and is sure to delight its intended audience. Artie grows to love her menswear, and seems to love women as well, and her embrace of her queerness is just one of the many transformations in the book. For young adults on up.

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Review

The Body in the Back Garden

by Brian Kenney

Growing up, Luke Tremblay loved being sent off to spend his summers with family on a small hamlet on Vancouver Island. Until high school hit and his parents learned he was gay and disowned him. Even his beloved Aunt Marguerite, a full-time island resident, refused to see him. So decades later, when his aunt dies and leaves Luke her estate, including a charming cottage and antique business, it’s a shock. He returns to the island with one goal: sell the properties and get back to Toronto. But when he’s attacked at the cottage by a seemingly random guy, who’s making crazy claims about his aunt, and when that guy is discovered the next morning dead in the garden, Luke can’t help but get pulled deeper into island life. Thanks also go to the Mountie, Sergeant Munro, aka Officer Beefcake, who, wouldn’t you know, was a childhood friend of Luke’s and still harbors a grudge for Luke disappearing all those years ago. There’s plenty to enjoy in this qouzy, from a budding romance to more crimes that need unearthing. And while Luke may not be the most charming of protagonists—he’s just a wee bit bitchy and somewhat of a snob—he’s certainly realistic. For anyone needing a quick vacation, this is it.

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Review

Everyone Here is Lying

by Brian Kenney

It’s Tuesday afternoon in suburban Stanhope, and all is as it should be. Family man Dr. William Wooler is at a local motel with one of the hospital volunteers. Except it turns out that today she’s decided to dump him. Furious, he heads home, only to discover his nine-year-old daughter, Avery, in the kitchen, having skipped out on choir practice. As “difficult” as she is mouthy, she’s sucking down Oreos and doing a good job of pressing her father’s buttons. But when Wooler strikes her with a blow to the head that knocks her to the floor, it’s still a shock, to both of them and the reader. Dad-of-the-year hightails it out of there—he goes for a drive to cool off—and when the Woolers’ son gets home from basketball practice, he finds the house empty. Where’s Avery? Thus begins this intense domestic suspense novel in which an entire community is taken apart and turned inside out. Families are interviewed, oftentimes iteratively, histories are resurrected, houses are searched, motives are examined, and what the cops don’t expose, the media does. All the pieces come together brilliantly in a shocking finale.

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Review

Death in the Dark

by Brian Kenney

The Dublin Drag Mysteries, of which this is Book 2, is a bit like the TV shows “Friends” combined with “Cheers.” Except it’s contemporary, set in Ireland, everyone is a drag queen—except for our narrator and lead, a 20-something woman named Fiona (Fi) McKinnery—and the bar is a nightclub called TRASH. It’s sort of the B-list—or maybe even the C-list?—of Dublin drag venues.

As in the first book, Death in Heels, Murphy is quick to get to the action. Here it’s the disappearance of Sparkle McCavity, a vivacious young drag queen and assistant to the renowned bridal couturier, and queen in her own right, Miss Merkin. Merkin turns to Fi, asking for her help in finding Sparkle. Reluctantly, Fi agrees, only to be caught up in a murder at TRASH that’s absolutely ghastly.

Centered on Fi, her best buddy and roommate Robyn, and their tight circle of friends, the bon mots fly despite the tragedies that surround them. As the situation grows direr, and another queen disappears—with the Gardaí (police) increasingly looking at Fi & Co. with suspicion—the pressure is on for Fi to do what the detectives can’t do: solve the case. Death in the Dark is an exceptionally engaging read leaving this reader wondering: where will Murphy go next with this crew?

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Review

Ukulele of Death

by Brian Kenney

I hesitate to review this novel—which is quite fantastic in every sense of the word—for fear of giving away one iota of the plot. Fran and Ken Stein (get it?) are a Manhattan-based brother and sister duo, in their mid-twenties, who operate a private-investigation firm. Having lost their parents when they were babies—or did they?—they focus on helping adoptees find their birth parents.

Whether their mom and dad are alive or not, the two have good reasons to be obsessed with their parentage, since they’re not exactly 100 percent human (let’s just leave that alone for now), stand well over six feet tall, and have the physical prowess of junior superheroes. The real delight is our narrator, Fran—equal parts snarky, witty, and loving—who agrees to find a client’s missing father, with only a rare ukulele for a clue. Ken is more of a bro, a frat boy who’s packing major muscle. But as trying as he might be, the siblings stick together because, well, there’s no one quite like them in the world.

The little ukulele caper becomes so much more, and before you know it, the two are running all over New York City, whether in pursuit or in hiding. This book is a total delight. But more than that, I’m obsessed with the storyline (it ends on a big of a cliffhanger) and if the next volume in the series isn’t released soon, I’m heading to New Jersey and downloading it from the author’s computer myself.

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Review

We Love to Entertain

by Brian Kenney

Praise to Strohmeyer for creating a novel both so funny—the behind-the-scenes details of the HGTV-like show To the Manor Build are a hoot—and so frightening. When a character is locked in a root cellar, I had to remind myself that this wasn’t Scandi Noir and she would survive.

The setting is Snowden, Vermont, where Holly and Robert Barron are one of three teams that are renovating fixer-uppers, with the public voting on the winning home. Lots of money hangs in the balance, both for the winners and for To the Manor Build through endorsements.

It would seem that the attractive Barrons have the lead—nauseatingly, they actually get married on the show to help boost ratings—when things start to fall apart. And I’m not talking about the late delivery of the blue, $16,000 French stove. Holly and Robert disappear, leaving a trail of blood in their wake.

Quick to be blamed is twenty-something Erika Turnbull. A daughter of Kim, the town clerk, she was working as the Barron’s assistant—no job too menial—and had a pretty major crush on Robert. Small-town Snowden is lit up with gossip.

To clear her name, Erika’s forced to work with her most unlikely partner, her mother, and the two of them—along with some truly memorable hangers-on—head off to solve the murders, shut up the obnoxious To the Manor Build producers, and resolve a secret of Kim’s that might provide the answers they need.

This book should appear to a broad range of readers, from twenty- and thirty-somethings to cozy fans and those looking for traditional mysteries.

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Review

Prom Mom

by Brian Kenney

Laura Lippman’s standalone novels are tremendously smart, descend deeply into the lives of a small cast of characters, and slowly build the readers’ anxiety to a nearly unbearable level. Prom Mom doesn’t disappoint.

Amber Glass left Baltimore decades ago, and for a good reason. The night of her prom, Amber gave birth, alone and without fully understanding she was pregnant. The baby died, and Amber, burdened with the tabloid moniker Prom Girl, was briefly incarcerated. Meanwhile, her prom date and crush, Joe Simpson, escaped largely unscathed, free to pursue the girl of his dreams.

When circumstances align to bring Amber back to Baltimore, she can’t stop thinking of Joe. Both have full lives. Married to a plastic surgeon he adores with a younger girlfriend on the side (yes, he’s that guy), Joe runs a busy commercial real estate firm, while Amber is using an inheritance to create a surprisingly successful gallery. Yet encounters are inevitable—Baltimore’s a small town—and slowly the two are drawn into a relationship they seem powerless to stop.

Set during 2020-2021, when the pandemic was at its peak and so many lives were being upended, Prom Mom brings us somewhere so shocking, yet so credible, we’re left contemplating this story for days to come.

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Review

The Centre

by Brian Kenney

London-based Anisa is a translator—she provides subtitles for Bollywood movies—but dreams of translating great works of literature. Her spare time is spent hanging out, talking politics, and complaining about her rather useless white boyfriend, Adam, himself a highly successful translator. In fact, on a trip with Anisa to visit her family in Karachi, Adam reveals that he’s also become fluent in Urdu, speaking it better than Anise. Anise goes into a tailspin. “This is shady as fuck.” There’s no way that Adam could become that fluent in years, never mind days. When she presses him for details, he lets her in on the Centre, where after thousands of dollars and ten days of study—living there, avoiding all contact with others, and listening only to your chosen language—you emerge completely fluent.

Skeptical but eager to give it a try, Anisa enters the Centre to learn German—and indeed, after several days of study she has a breakthrough. Along the way, she becomes close to Shiba, who manages the Centre and whose father was one of four men who, while Oxford students, developed this radical approach to language learning. But how radical is it? On a trip to New Delhi with Shiba, Anisa finally learns how the Centre works—and the discovery is shocking.This is a debut, but Siddiqi writes like a pro, slowly building the character of Anisa, so that when the big reveal is made, it’s all the more meaningful.

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Review

The Spare Room

by Brian Kenney

It’s the early months of the pandemic, and Kelly Doyle—who has recently moved to Philadelphia to live with her fiancé—finds herself with few friends and no job. But when her spouse-to-be calls off their wedding, Kelly hits a new level of despair. Her one bright spot is her childhood friend Sabrina; the two recently renewed their friendship thanks to the socials.

Sabrina has it all: a career as a best-selling romance author, a Virginia mansion right out of Elle Decor, and a handsome albeit hyper-masculine husband. So when Sabrina invites Kelly to move in with them—yes, it’s a little weird—Kelly is desperate enough to say yes. Before you can say “throuple” (why wasn’t that the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year?) the three are in bed together—this ain’t no cozy—and quickly establish a threesome. Until Kelly comes across the naked photos of another woman, who could well be her doppelganger, and learns that she is a former lover of the couple who has mysteriously vanished. Will Kelly be next?

A sexy read in which no one is right, no one is wrong, and everyone is lying. By the author of We Were Never Here, this is the ultimate summer read.

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