Jones (Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State, 2018, etc.) has written a smashing crime novel, adding to his perfectly...
Cosmo Aniello, a former Brooklyn gangster hiding out in a witness protection program in Montana, fears his low-key existence as handyman "Ted Sweeney" is cooked when he finds a body with its throat slit seated in his favorite recliner.
All things considered, the town of Rockjaw has been pretty good for Sweeney. Though he's divorced from Marilyn, his wife when they were transplanted to Montana, he gets along with her—even though she has become, of all things, a cop. And he entertains thoughts of marrying his girlfriend Aggie, a twice-divorced librarian with apple-pie qualities. Hoping to escape detection, Sweeney deposits the corpse in the river, with Marilyn's tacit understanding. But when his one-time New York flame, Tina, turns up, he knows there will be no escaping his past. His life of crime began at 13, when he and his older cousin Eddie went to work for midlevel Italian Mafioso Jimmy the Nose—"Milton Berle, Dick Clark, George Burns with a rotten apple for a nose." With "wise guys...on the wane," he and Eddie sold themselves to Russian gangsters. The MacGuffin of the book is a 25-carat uncut diamond that a frightening Russian boss wants back. There are times when it's difficult to reconcile Cosmo's street-level origins with his cultural sophistication (as the narrator, he describes Marilyn as "a portrait by Daumier"). But Jones is such a terrific, stylish writer and sustains his comic edge with such seeming ease that it's easy to overlook such factors.
Jones (Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State, 2018, etc.) has written a smashing crime novel, adding to his perfectly pitched comic voice with nicely drawn characters and a strong sense of place.Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63246-083-7
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Ig Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A mind-bending mystery, an insightful exploration of parent-child relationships, and a cautionary tale about bitterness and...
A young man seeking catharsis probes old wounds and unleashes fresh pain in this expertly crafted stand-alone from Edgar finalist Gaylin (If I Die Tonight, 2018, etc.).
Quentin Garrison is an accomplished true-crime podcaster, but it’s not until his troubled mother, Kate, fatally overdoses that he tackles the case that destroyed his family. In 1976, teenagers Gabriel LeRoy and April Cooper murdered 12 people in Southern California—Kate’s little sister included—before dying in a fire. Kate’s mother committed suicide, and her father withdrew, neglecting Kate, who in turn neglected Quentin. Quentin intends for Closure to examine the killings’ ripple effects, but after an interview with his estranged grandfather ends in a fight, he resolves to find a different angle. When a source alleges that April is alive and living in New York as Renee Bloom, Quentin is dubious, but efforts to debunk the claim only uncover more supporting evidence, so he flies east to investigate. Renee’s daughter, online film columnist Robin Diamond, is preoccupied with Twitter trolls and marital strife when Quentin calls to inquire about her mom’s connection to April Cooper. Robin initially dismisses Quentin but, upon reflection, realizes she knows nothing of Renee’s past. Before she can ask, a violent home invasion hospitalizes her parents and leaves Robin wondering whom she can trust. Artfully strewn red herrings and a kaleidoscopic narrative heighten tension while sowing seeds of distrust concerning the characters’ honesty and intentions. Letters from April to her future daughter written mid–crime spree punctuate chapters from Quentin's and Robin’s perspectives, humanizing her and Gabriel in contrast with sensationalized accounts from Hollywood and the media.
A mind-bending mystery, an insightful exploration of parent-child relationships, and a cautionary tale about bitterness and blame.Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-284454-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are...
A perfect wife’s disappearance plunges her husband into a nightmare as it rips open ugly secrets about his marriage and, just maybe, his culpability in her death.
Even after they lost their jobs as magazine writers and he uprooted her from New York and spirited her off to his childhood home in North Carthage, Mo., where his ailing parents suddenly needed him at their side, Nick Dunne still acted as if everything were fine between him and his wife, Amy. His sister Margo, who’d gone partners with him on a local bar, never suspected that the marriage was fraying, and certainly never knew that Nick, who’d buried his mother and largely ducked his responsibilities to his father, stricken with Alzheimer’s, had taken one of his graduate students as a mistress. That’s because Nick and Amy were both so good at playing Mr. and Ms. Right for their audience. But that all changes the morning of their fifth anniversary when Amy vanishes with every indication of foul play. Partly because the evidence against him looks so bleak, partly because he’s so bad at communicating grief, partly because he doesn’t feel all that grief-stricken to begin with, the tide begins to turn against Nick. Neighbors who’d been eager to join the police in the search for Amy begin to gossip about him. Female talk-show hosts inveigh against him. The questions from Detective Rhonda Boney and Detective Jim Gilpin get sharper and sharper. Even Nick has to acknowledge that he hasn’t come close to being the husband he liked to think he was. But does that mean he deserves to get tagged as his wife’s killer? Interspersing the mystery of Amy’s disappearance with flashbacks from her diary, Flynn (Dark Places, 2009, etc.) shows the marriage lumbering toward collapse—and prepares the first of several foreseeable but highly effective twists.
One of those rare thrillers whose revelations actually intensify its suspense instead of dissipating it. The final pages are chilling.Pub Date: June 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-58836-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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