Much of the pleasure in reading this tangled yarn from the prolific Magson (Hard Cover, 2016, etc.) comes from putting the...
With the stakes high and time running out, two security experts try to piece together the last hours of a missing client.
An unidentified prisoner finds himself trapped in a room described as a box within a box. Meanwhile, investigators Ruth Gonzalez and Andy Vaslik of Cruxys Solutions take a meeting with Londoner Elizabeth Chadwick, whose husband, James, unbeknownst to her, has taken out an unusual insurance policy. If the policyholder is not heard from within five days, Cruxys issues a code red and begins a search. Elizabeth claims ignorance of any danger in James’ work. Also in the mix is Iraq War vet Tommy-Lee Roddick, who’s guarding the unidentified prisoner and already suspicious about the legitimacy of the contractors who’ve hired him. The story weaves together these multiple strands as Ruth and Andy inch closer to Chadwick’s location and learn more about him. Tommy-Lee is torn when his employers, who call themselves Paul and Bill, instruct him to water-board the prisoner. Ruth and Andy make slow progress, encountering obstacles at every turn. In Newark, Chadwick’s “friend” Valerie DiPalma reveals that Chadwick was doing sensitive work on the development of drones. Later, Valerie finds a hidden bit of info that leads Ruth and Andy to a major break in the case.
Much of the pleasure in reading this tangled yarn from the prolific Magson (Hard Cover, 2016, etc.) comes from putting the pieces together along with his pair of sleuths. Though the story unfolds predictably, they have nice chemistry and banter with aplomb.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7387-5043-9
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.
A plucky group of early-20th-century detectives (Murder on Trinity Place, 2019, etc.) takes on the Black Hand.
The leads include Frank Malloy and Gino Donatelli, former police officers who started a detective agency after an unexpected legacy made Malloy a wealthy man; Malloy’s wife, Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy society family who runs a maternity clinic for the poor; and their nanny, Maeve, a budding sleuth who works in Malloy’s office. All of them leap to attention when Gino’s sister-in-law Teodora reports that Jane Harding, a worker at the settlement house where Teo volunteers, has been kidnapped by the Black Hand, who are notorious for abducting the wives and children of anyone who can afford to pay ransom. The New York Police Department is corrupt, and the local Italian immigrants never report crimes. Mr. McWilliam, who runs the settlement house, had asked Jane to marry him, but she’d asked him to allow her to experience more of the single life before deciding. Seeking clues, Sarah visits Mrs. Cassidi, an earlier kidnapping victim who’s refused to talk to anyone, in hopes that her nursing experience and sympathetic manner will get results. Mrs. Cassidi admits to being raped but knows little about where she was held captive, a quiet place in a house where she could hear children. Soon after Nunzio Esposito, a leader of the Black Hand, tells Malloy that no one’s been taken from the settlement house, Jane suddenly reappears but refuses to discuss where she’s been. Lisa Prince, Jane’s well-to-do cousin, reluctantly agrees to take her in even though Jane’s jealous of her wealth and can be unpleasant to deal with. When Esposito’s found murdered in a flat he rented for his mistress, Gino, who’s just arrived on the scene, is arrested. Now the clever sleuths must solve both the murder and the abductions to clear Gino’s name.
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0574-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.
Hard Case revives a pair of movie-related novellas originally published under the cryptic title Enough in 1977.
A Travesty, the first and longer of these stories, opens with movie reviewer Carey Thorpe standing over the dead body of actress Laura Penney, the lover with whom his quarrel had suddenly and fatally escalated. Even though her death was technically an accident, Carey, who doesn’t want anyone connecting him with it, immediately begins concealing all indications that he was ever in her apartment. It’s all for naught: Soon he finds himself blackmailed by private detective John Edgarson and having to commit another felony to satisfy his demands. From that point on, his dilemma rapidly spirals into one of the comic nightmares in which Westlake (Brothers Keepers, 1975/2019, etc.) specialized: Moments in which he’s threatened with exposure alternate with long intervals in which NYPD DS Al Bray and especially DS Fred Staples, who’ve decided that he’s innocent, take Carey under their wings, marveling at his ability to solve murders committed by other people; then he caps his transgressions by taking Staples’ wife, Patricia, to bed. The second novella, Ordo, couldn’t be more different. The naval mates of Ordo Tupikos, a deeply ordinary San Diego sailor, tell him that Estelle Anlic, the woman whose marriage to him was annulled years ago when the courts, egged on by her mother, discovered that she was underage, has transformed herself into movie star Dawn Devayne. Against all odds, he manages to reintroduce himself to Estelle, or Dawn, but although her agent plays it as a storybook reunion, Orry just can’t find Estelle in Dawn, who’s changed a lot more than he has, and the tale ends on a note of sad resignation.
Neither story is anywhere near Westlake’s best work, but they still make a terrific tragicomic pair.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78565-720-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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