Cold Bones

November 1, 2024
DCI Henry Johnstone has retired from Scotland Yard and set up his own investigation agency, but he's bored. Then he receives information relating to a case he worked on three years ago: the murder of Robert Hanson, who died after being brutally kicked to death. All evidence had pointed to Ethan Samuels as the killer. Rather than face the hangman's noose, Samuels fled, leaving behind his pregnant fianc�e, Helen. In 1931 rural England, being an unwed mother was unacceptable, so Frank Church, a friend of Ethan's, married her, raising the baby as his own. However, after being fatally injured himself, Church confesses on his deathbed that he was the one who murdered Robert Hanson. Henry is determined to seek justice for Ethan, which means finding him and convincing him to return to reunite with Helen and his child. Meanwhile, Henry's former partner, Mickey Hitchens, now an inspector, is investigating a case of arson and murder. A gripping, multi-faceted historical mystery that will appeal to fans of Golden Age writers like Josephine Tey, Agatha Christie, and Margery Allingham.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2024
Another return to the early 1930s for a retired police detective who just won't let go. There's no keeping Henry Johnstone down. Still suffering the ill effects of the wounds that ended his career as a detective inspector with Scotland Yard, he's allowed his masterful sister, Cynthia Garrett Smyth, to hang out his shingle as a private inquiry agent, even though he's running no inquiries and employing no agents. His latest diversion comes in a letter from Dr. Walter Fielding, who remembers him from the time he spent in Lincolnshire three years ago on a case, informing him that local stockman Frank Church used the interval between falling into a threshing machine and expiring to confess to the murder of Robert Hanson at that time. Henry still has a keen personal interest in the case because he'd been convinced that the victim had been killed by Ethan Samuels, the former lover of Frank's wife, Helen, and the father of the son Frank was raising as his own. Henry is determined to track down Ethan and bring him home even though his family--fully aware that he'd still serve time for grievous bodily harm against Hanson, since he did beat him even if he didn't kill him--is in no hurry to help. Meanwhile, Dan Trotter, a failed merchant who's paid to have his warehouse burned down for the insurance, has killed the unknown man who found him on the scene, trying to make a proper job of the halfhearted blaze his hirelings started. Since Adams reveals both killers from the beginning, the biggest mystery is the identity of that dead man, and that doesn't generate many sparks either. Come for the period detail and stay for the emotional journeys of the sleuth and his prey.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.