A solid second round of capers featuring this attractive, cynical couple.
In this second installment of the License to Lie mystery series, con artist Roxy Tanner and criminologist Skip Cosgrove contend with a scam gone wrong, death threats and their evolving romance.
At a Hollywood party and looking fabulous, Roxy Tanner is there to lure obnoxious financier Jack Welton back to his hideaway apartment. She was hired by Anita, his scorned mistress, to exact revenge. At the apartment, Roxy stuns Welton with her Taser and hacks into his computer to gain access to his illegal bank account. Anita and her brother Dom arrive to help, but Roxy leaves in haste upon learning that criminologist Skip Cosgrove—with whom she’s having a hot, if wary, affair—is in the hospital. Turns out, he was attacked by drug-world criminal Joey Santino, whom he recently testified against. Skip senses Roxy has been up to trouble and that she will want to help track Santino, so he sends her on a busywork mission to scope out a house formerly connected to the criminal. Roxy stumbles onto fresh leads, however, thanks to tips from Lily, a 12-year-old street kid. While Roxy and Lily bond and follow various trails, Skip discovers Welton is dead, and he goes on the hunt to find the killer and protect Roxy. The lovers eventually have their reunion at the home of Anita’s wise aunt Marjorie, which precedes a final sequence that resolves the crosscutting mystery plots. Author of several previous mysteries, including License to Lie (2014), which launched Roxy and Skip, Ambrose touches on high-finance malfeasance, adultery and drug dealing with the kind of snark that will remind readers of Elmore Leonard. Given their moral nuances, Roxy and Skip are entertaining anchors for a series, and the introduction of Lily brings the promise of further complications for their relationship. Yet Ambrose’s rather noir/pulp-fiction explosion of characters, settings and plot details can at times be clichéd as well as confusing, with the mysteries ultimately not as intriguing as his sleuthing protagonists. Still, the narrative moves smoothly enough, and readers will look forward to the duo’s future adventures.
A solid second round of capers featuring this attractive, cynical couple.Pub Date: April 29, 2014
ISBN: 978-0985954048
Page Count: 311
Publisher: Satori
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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