A brisk, action-packed tale featuring a complex amateur detective.
An ex-Marine wrestling with anger hunts a serial killer in Pace’s thriller.
Belle Bannon is trying to make ends meet as a hunting guide and a ski patroller in Park City, Utah. She has a dark secret, and it’s one that drove her out of the military: She has intermittent explosive disorder, a condition in which certain stimuli can cause disproportionate, uncontrolled rage. Park City’s preeminent event, the Sundance Film Festival, is the site of a series of deadly accidents, resulting in the deaths of a Wisconsin politician, an A-list actor, a local judge, and a high school senior to whom Belle was close. Belle suspects that the deaths are somehow connected, and she’s proved right: A vengeful killer who calls herself the Sword of Justice has been orchestrating them. The Sword is in a relationship with Danny Pagano, a drug dealer whom Belle crosses, and before long, Belle is dodging multiple attempts on her life. She joins forces with Carrie Palmer, her new ski patrol friend, and Alonzo Longabaugh, an attractive Drug Enforcement Agency operative, as they attempt to determine who the Sword is. They also seek to prevent the death of her next target—a top DEA official—while racing against the clock. Meanwhile, Belle struggles with guilt over the deaths of three fellow Marines. Fortunately, Carrie, a pacifist; Alonzo, a fellow veteran; and Belle’s uncle Sal, a lawyer, are there to provide much-needed support. This novel provides a promising start to a new series. Pace, the author of Dead Light(2013), brings his background as an attorney to his latest thriller, which lends a sense of authenticity to the various legal obstacles that Belle faces during her investigation. However, readers may find it baffling that local law enforcement doesn’t make more of an effort to investigate a distinct uptick in deaths during the city’s busiest time of year. Still, Belle’s doggedness in searching for answers more than makes up for the indifference surrounding her. Ultimately, Pace’s narrative flies along like an expert skier on one of Park City’s famous slopes.
A brisk, action-packed tale featuring a complex amateur detective.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64583-073-3
Page Count: 359
Publisher: Foundations Book Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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