Not just murder, but adultery, hate crime, fraud, elder abuse, police misconduct, and dysfunctional families. Enjoy.
V.I. Warshawski returns to confront a list of felonies as long as your arm, even if your arm is holding a rifle.
A quiet walk with the dogs she shares with her 92-year-old neighbor, Sal Contreras, turns eventful when one of them slips the leash and takes off to nose out what turns out to be an unconscious young woman, beaten and burned. Thankfully, the Jane Doe, who murmurs only one semi-intelligible word, nagyi, is still alive, but Sgt. Lenora Pizzello, of the Chicago PD, has lots of questions for Vic, beginning with why her dog was unleashed. Thoroughly rattled by the experience, Vic has trouble pivoting to the elderly members of Congregation Shaamar Hashomayim when their synagogue is vandalized. A possible savior to the problems of the impoverished community seems to emerge, but in fact Brendan “Corky” Ranaghan, senior partner in Klondike Financial Services, is merely interested in becoming a silent partner by purchasing their building and doesn’t mind throwing out vague threats to help them make up their minds. Back at the hospital from which the Jane Doe has managed to escape wearing the clothes of Ariadne Blanchard, her roommate, Hungarian-born janitor Jan Kadar, who overheard her in conversation with an unidentified visitor, is found murdered, followed shortly by Ariadne. Meantime, Brad (ne Branwell) Litvak, the son of Vic’s old friend Donny, has approached her with more halting suspicions, and she runs repeatedly and unprofitably into Lt. Scott Coney, who seems determined to add her to his long list of excessive-force complainants. Paretsky ties this rapidly expanding bolus together with such an assured sense of inevitability that fans may overlook the relative lack of surprise.
Not just murder, but adultery, hate crime, fraud, elder abuse, police misconduct, and dysfunctional families. Enjoy.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-301088-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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