Closed Casket

June 20, 2016
Set in October 1929, bestseller Hannah’s captivating sequel to 2014’s The Monogram Murders finds Hercule Poirot and Scotland Yard’s Insp. Edward Catchpool visiting Lady Athelinda Playford’s mansion in Clonakilty, County Cork, in the Irish Free State. Other guests include Athie’s children, their significant others, her attorneys, and her ailing secretary. At first, Poirot and Catchpool can’t figure out why they were invited, but then Athie announces she’s drafted a new will leaving everything to her secretary, and they realize their presence is intended to keep the peace. Someone commits murder regardless, and the detecting duo must determine whodunit. An intriguing setup, colorful characters, and witty dialogue elevate this classic manor house mystery. Fiendish schemes and an abundance of interpersonal conflict foster tension and drive plot, while outrageous twists and juicy red herrings confound readers. This Christie estate–sanctioned pastiche isn’t perfect—Hannah’s Poirot is too subdued and the killer’s machinations prove preposterous—but overall, this endeavor confirms that the Queen of Crime’s legacy is in capable hands.

October 3, 2016
Hannah’s second estate-sanctioned addition to Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot finds the brilliant, amusingly self-centered Belgian sleuth in 1929, attending a house party from hell. Neither he nor Scotland Yard Insp. Edward Catchpool, the novel’s thoughtful narrator and Poirot’s friend, know why they’ve been invited by Lady Athelinda Playford to
her County Cork mansion in the Irish
Free State. Other guests include Athie’s children, their significant others, her attorneys, and her ailing secretary. When Athie announces she’s drafted a new will leaving everything to her secretary, Poirot and Catchpool realize their presence is intended to keep the peace. Someone commits murder regardless, and the detecting duo must determine whodunit. Hannah’s entertaining pastiche is brim-full of character interactions, backstories, smart chat, and diabolical twists of plot, most of which Rhind-Tutt, performing as Catchpool, delivers in the cool, measured voice of a professional Yard observer. There are moments, however, when the inspector’s almost steely British reserve gives way to self-doubt, anger, sorrow, and even petulance, and Rhind-Tutt shifts his narration accordingly. As for Poirot, Rhind-Tutt’s rendition resembles that of the sleuth’s longtime television interpreter, David Suchet. A wise man doesn’t meddle with perfection. A Morrow hardcover.

April 15, 2016

Here's Hannah's second Hercule Poirot novel (after the well-reviewed The Monogram Murders; "Christie herself, some might say, could do no better," said the Washington Post). No news on the plot, but there's a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2016
Even Tolstoy's All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way is no match for the Playfords, a rich, dysfunctional clan that finds itself in need of smelling salts over an inheritance gone very wrong. Lady Playford, whose family lives in Ireland but is very much of England, writes children's fiction of the Enid Blyton, jolly-good sort. After she summons Hercule Poirot and Edward Catchpool, a Scotland Yard detective, to a showdown with her family, the tale seems to be shaping up like a domestic murder mystery, but then it branches further afieldboth geographically and in terms of plot twists. Poirot's and Catchpool's sleuthing skills are put to the test as Hannah's spot-on take on Agatha Christie's milieu and writing moves toward an unpredictable and satisfying finale. Hannah's second Christie novel, after The Monogram Murders (2014), will be devoured by readers of that title and of Christie's original works (the new versions thankfully forego the anti-Semitism found in the earlier ones). The book is ideal, too, for fans of Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher novels and the related TV show, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteriesand for library programs featuring the board game Clue.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)