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THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR

A colorful and proficient missing child mystery.

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A priest and his wife help to solve a cold case in small-town Oregon in this mystery.

Father Matthew and his wife, Maggie,are hosting their friend Father Francesco, who’s visiting their new home and parish of Biggs Junction, Oregon, at the beginning of Kelley's novel. Father Francesco, on a break from his usual work writing encyclicals for the Vatican, decides to go for a walk, exploring the rocks under a nearby bridge spanning the Columbia River, which forms the border between Oregon and Washington. But what starts as a casual outing quickly turns much darker when Father Francesco finds a human skeleton among the rocks. The three friends call the local police, who automatically think of the 5-year-old unsolved case of the Celilo girls—13-year-old twins who disappeared without a trace. If the skeleton is the remains of one of those girls, could there be a chance that the other sister is still alive? Father Matthew and Maggie describe themselves to the police as “pretty good” amateur sleuths and are soon receiving sage advice from a local officer and helping out with the case. Father Matthew and Maggie come to know Biggs Junction and its people in ways they never expected. Over many chapters, Kelley develops the mystery quite slowly and methodically as the investigation gradually broadens to include possible police corruption, inequities at the local Native Americanreservation, and the intricacies of the dark world of human trafficking. Overall, the author follows a fairly standard template for amateur-detective crime novels, but she has a winning pair in her two lead characters, whose straightforward compassion and humanity stand in refreshing contrast to the book’s darker elements. The deliberate pacing sometimes results in some stodgy sections, but the author does effectively convey the feeling of long-buried lurking evil, and some readers will be reminded of the work of bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman.

A colorful and proficient missing child mystery.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-73-589280-1

Page Count: 251

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: June 19, 2021

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TO DIE FOR

Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.

The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.

Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead. 

Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024

ISBN: 9781538757901

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024

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THE GREY WOLF

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.

At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024

ISBN: 9781250328137

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024

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