Author

Brian Kenney

Review

Whiteout

by Brian Kenney

I’ve always been a fan of ice thrillers, and Burnett’s Whiteout is perfectly terrifying in every way. When we meet Rachel, an Oxbridge scientist, she’s living alone in a tiny tent in Antarctica. She can’t reach anyone, and the only broadcast she can receive is a public service announcement from the BBC stating that there has been a nuclear attack and not to leave your home. But even if the world no longer exists, Rachel soldiers on, collecting samples every day, if only to retain a feeling of normalcy. There’s plenty Rachel doesn’t understand, but even more that the reader must struggle to put together. Add to this Rachel’s guilt-ridden memories of leaving behind her baby girl and husband and nature’s increasing violence that seems to want to destroy her, and you have a recipe for a meltdown. Burnett is a genius with pace, and the book gains speed as Rachel manages to push past one obstacle after another to the final confrontation. Pack all the down you have, you’re going to need it.

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Review

Murder Takes the Stage

by Brian Kenney

Mysteries and the theater make for wonderful marriages—there are scores of examples—and this recent contribution from Colleen Cambridge is completely on point. Agatha Christie and household have temporarily moved from her country estate, Mallowan Hall, to London. The exiles include Phyllida Bright, Christie’s housekeeper (and so much more, including amateur sleuth). But Phyllida is a bit stressed out. She has a love/hate relationship with London—something is making her nervous—plus there is the staff to manage, including the temporary faux-French chef. But enough with the escargot, there’s a murder (Archibald Allston in the Adelphi Theater) followed by another (Benvolio at the Belmont Theater). See where this is headed? Death by alliteration, unless Phyllida gets there in time. This delightful mystery provides a fun look at London’s historic theaters, a glimpse at London’s LGBTQ nightlife, a splendid dénouement right out of a Christie novel, and most remarkably of all: a love interest for Phyllida. Lots of fun to be had here.

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Review

The Tokyo Suite

by Brian Kenney

A deep investigation into the lives of two women: a mistress and her maid. Maju is one of scores of the “white army,” maids and nannies in São Paulo; she cares for young Cora, whose parents pay the child little attention. Fernanda, Cora’s mother and a successful TV executive, is uniquely self-involved; even when Maju and Cora disappear one day, Fernanda can’t stop obsessing over an affair she’s having long enough to focus on her own daughter’s abduction. Dad, meanwhile, has pretty much checked out. But once Fernanda does realize her daughter is gone, her whole world begins to cave in. Maju and Cora, meanwhile, have boarded a bus for a multi-day trip that Maju barely plans—they have limited food and money—and that begins to unravel after the first day. Each woman is confronted by a harrowing series of events that forces them to confront maternal guilt, poverty, and society’s expectations.

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Review

Follow the Butterfly

by Brian Kenney

Appreciate dark psychological thrillers packed with twists and turns? Then this book is for you. Clarissa Virtanen, a renowned but troubled therapist, who remains guilt-ridden over the death of a young patient, takes on Ida, another young client. Ida is one disturbing young woman: angry, damaged, messed up, full of suicidal ideations. But Clarissa believes she can help Ida, providing that Ida agrees to refrain from self-harm for six months—enough time for Clarissa to unlock her past, learn her secrets, and save her. But what Ida has in store are murderous secrets that she’s been harboring for years, and that may well be Clarissa’s undoing.

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Review

A Death in Diamonds

by Brian Kenney

It’s hard to imagine, but one of the very best series has gotten even better. While the first three books were set around 2016, and featured Rozie Oshodi, Assistant Private Secretary (APS) to the Queen, here we jump back to 1957. The Queen is a young woman, still new to her role as monarch; the U.K. continues to recover from the Second World War; and a new APS emerges out of the typing pool: Joan McGraw, whose wartime work included decoding. This case is centered around a notorious murder: a young woman, a high-class escort, is found dead in a house in Chelsea that belongs to an elite men’s club. She is wearing only silk underwear and a diamond tiara. Nearby lies the body of an older man, garrotted. The double-murder grips Londoners, including the Queen, who has her own reasons for fearing that someone close to her could be implicated. Elizabeth doesn’t trust the old courtiers who surround her and turns to Joan for help in solving the case of the “tart in the tiara.” Besides a bang-up plot, this novel reaches brilliantly into Elizabeth’s life, from real-life state visits to Paris and North America, trying to bolster the U.K.’s relationships, to her tumultuous relationship with Philip, to her fear of a scandal that could take down the monarchy. This is deep, rich writing that should attract the millions who enjoyed The Crown, and want yet more.

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Review

Sleep In Heavenly Pizza

by Brian Kenney

Settle in for a truly wonderful read as Geneva Bay, Wisconsin prepares for the holidays. For pizza chef Delilah
O’Leary, and her crew, a glitzy Chrismukkah catering gig in one of the local mansions gets things started, but when Delilah’s family shows up out of the blue with their own set of hostilities and anxiety-producing behavior in tow, things take a decidedly unpleasant turn. And any hopes that the next day’s annual snow-sculpting championship will cheer everyone up—Delilah attends with now-boyfriend Detective Calvin Capone (yes, that Capone family)—are dashed when a corpse is found frozen in the ice. Quigley employs a large cast of characters, from the formerly incarcerated and now dishwasher “Rabbit” (where did he disappear to?) to Sonya, Delilah’s bestie who helps Delilah sort out her relationship with Capone, to Delilah’s grumpy sister Shea, who most definitely has something up her sleeve. The miracle is that we can follow each character with ease, their identities are so well drawn, while caring about each of them. Add to this a bucketful of red herrings sure to send readers in a dozen different directions. Fire up the pizza, cue Mariah Carey, and make sure the cat is comfortable: cozies just don’t get better than this.

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Review

Loose Lips

by Brian Kenney

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This book will have you quickly rearranging your life so that you can get to the all-so-worth-it ending ASAP and without any distractions. A classic closed-circle mystery, it features nearly 300 women and practically no men on a literary cruise to nowhere called the “Get Lit Cruise.” The cruise has been organized by best-selling author and writing guru Payton Garrett, who’s brought along some friends to lead the seminars. These include an MFA frenemy known as the ghostwriter who, under the pseudonym Belle Currer, is a well-known mystery writer (we first met her in Donovan’s The Busy Body). Belle is hands-down one of the most wickedly droll narrators in mysteries these days—hip, full of fun, yet still capable of being terrified. And terror there is, when murder visits the high seas, leaving corpses in its wake. It’s easy to compare this novel to those from Agatha Christie and Anthony Horowitz, but Loose Lips is very much its own thing, and Belle very much her own unique character. I can’t wait to feature this book in next spring’s book discussions.

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Review

The Case of the Missing Maid

by Brian Kenney

A wonderful foray into turn-of-the-19th-century Chicago, with women entering the workforce, immigrants transforming the city, and the LGBTQ community tucked away in hidden nightclubs. Harriet Morrow, all of 21 years old, is the first woman hired as a detective by the prestigious Prescott Agency—a decision that pleases almost no one, neither the male detectives nor the female typing pool. But working as a detective has always been a dream of Harriet’s, and now, with her parents dead and her younger brother to support, it’s a necessity. So too are the pants she wears, giving her the freedom to comfortably bike around Chicago while also exploring her identity as a lesbian. Within an hour on the job, Harriet gets her first assignment: to find a maid who has disappeared from one of the posh mansions on Prairie Avenue—and Harriet has only a few days to locate her. It’s magical how Osler transports us around Chicago, from the the large Polish community to queer social spaces to the ritzy homes of Chicago’s elite. Harriet is a wonderful lead character, and Osler brilliantly combines his protagonist’s growth into adulthood and Chicago’s emergence as one of the nation’s largest cities. This book is asking to be the first in a series

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Review

Young, Pamela Samuels and Dwayne Alexander Smith. Sounds Like a Plan.

by Brian Kenney

A fun, fast-reading thromance (that’s thriller+romance) with echoes of the old TV Show Moonlighting (if Cybill Shepherd were carrying around an assault rifle in her trunk.) Mackenzie and Jackson are two Black private investigators who are hired by the same client to track down a missing young woman. The first one to locate her will receive a cool $50,000. The two PIs are as different as can be. Princeton-grad Mackenzie comes from a seriously affluent family, with a mother who can only register disgust at her daughter’s choice of career. Jackson grew up in tougher circumstances and came up through the LAPD before hanging out his own shingle. Mackenzie is struggling to get her business off the ground, while Jackson is highly successful but can’t stop indulging in fancy cars and an even fancier wardrobe. The narrative flips between the two personalities, chapter-by-chapter, which gives the authors a chance to explore their characters’ personal lives while keeping the story moving briskly along. As their paths cross, the tension between Mackenzie and Jackson builds, while their struggle to survive becomes paramount. Smith and Young have laid out everything that’s necessary for the making of a wonderful series.

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Review

Schooled in Murder

by Brian Kenney

It’s wonderful to be back in the graves of academe, especially when we are in the expert hands of Victoria Gilbert, series serialist (meaning she writes several series!). This book launches a new series, and it’s just a wee bit meta. Jen Dalton, mystery author and English professor, gets tangled in a real crime—the murder of a colleague—while, of course, writing her own mystery. If she doesn’t manage to solve the crime happening in real life, then one of her students, a talented writer in her own right, will likely be proclaimed guilty. Lucky for Jen, she has a gang ready to help her out—who needs the police?—from a cafeteria manager to a librarian to Zachary Flynn, the incredibly annoying campus shrink whom Jen can’t help but find attractive (it’s right out of Smart Women, Foolish Choices. Wonderfully paced, brimming with great characterization, and with a terrific lead in Jen, this novel will appeal to many mystery readers, from cozy lovers to those just seeking a good, traditional read.

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