by Alexander McCall Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 2020
McCall Smith’s great gift is making you shelve your genre-honed expectations and accept his people and stories as they are.
A second course of Nordic blanc for Ulf Varg and his colleagues in Malmö’s Department of Sensitive Crimes.
Now that uniformed officer Blomquist has been seconded to the DSC, Varg’s regulars—Anna Bengsdotter, whom Ulf secretly pines for; Carl Holgersson; and Erik, the clerk who fishes whenever he’s not maintaining the files—all appreciate his uncanny talent for intuiting the answers to the riddles that cross their desks. This time, Ulf will have his help in shadowing Anna’s husband, anesthetist Jo Asplund, whom she suspects of cheating on her (if only he were, thinks Ulf mournfully). It’s Ulf’s neighbor and dogsitter, Agnes Högfors, who has the honor of figuring out who’s blackmailing Nils Persson-Cederström, the Swedish Hemingway, whose partner Ulf has met in group therapy. Ulf thinks he’s the one who’ll have to decide what to do about a stolen Saab grille he’s been presented with by grateful Roma thief Viligot Danior, who thinks he owes Ulf for giving evidence against the Lutheran minister who punched Danior in the nose because he caught Danior’s son stealing his tires. But here again he’s given a miraculous bit of assistance that lets him off the hook. Fans of Ulf’s debut in The Department of Sensitive Crimes (2019) or the author’s other gently reflective franchises won’t be surprised or disappointed to learn that most of the crimes here aren’t really crimes, and Ulf’s crime-solving talents are highly questionable.
McCall Smith’s great gift is making you shelve your genre-honed expectations and accept his people and stories as they are.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4896-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 27, 2024
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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by Amy Tintera ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 5, 2024
Smart, edgy, and entertaining as heck.
Against her better judgment, Lucy Chase returns to her hometown of Plumpton, Texas, for her grandmother’s birthday, knowing full well that almost everyone in town still believes she murdered her best friend five years ago, when they were in their early 20s.
Coincidentally—or is it?—Ben Owens, a true-crime podcaster, is also in town, interviewing Lucy’s family and former friends about the murder of Savannah Harper, “just the sweetest girl you ever met,” who died from several violent blows to the head. Lucy was found hours later covered in blood, with no memory of what happened. She was—and is—a woman with secrets, which has not endeared her to the people of Plumpton; their narrative is that she was always violent, secretive, difficult. But Ben wants to tell Lucy’s story; attractive and relentless, he uncovers new evidence and coaxes new interviews, and people slowly begin to question whether Lucy is truly guilty. Lucy, meanwhile, lets down her guard, and as she and Ben draw closer together, she has to finally face the truth of her past and unmask the murderer of her complicated, gorgeous, protective friend. Most of the novel is told from Lucy’s point of view, which allows for a natural unspooling of the layers of her life and her story. She’s strong, she’s prickly, and we gradually begin to understand just how wronged she has been. The story is a striking commentary on the insular and harmful nature of small-town prejudice and how women who don’t fit a certain mold are often considered outliers, if not straight-up villains. Tintera is smart to capitalize on how the true-crime podcast boom informs and infuses the current fictional thriller scene; she’s also effective at writing action that transcends the podcast structure.
Smart, edgy, and entertaining as heck.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781250880314
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
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