Filled with raw power, this may be the darkest thriller of the year.
An explosive thriller that plunges into the sewer of human smuggling.
Billy Barnett picks up Livia Lone in a bar, figuring her for an easy, like-it-or-not lay. But she’s set up this known predator and kills him. She is a Seattle sex-crimes cop who secretly murders scum the legal system hasn’t sufficiently punished. “She respected the system…and if the system didn’t get them [victims] justice, she would get them justice another way.” After this brisk opening, we plunge into Livia's back story. In Thailand her parents sell 13-year-old Labee and her 11-year-old sister, Nason, who become separated on arriving in the U.S. in a shipping container. Labee is adopted and renamed Livia, becoming the sex slave of prominent businessman Fred Lone. At school she befriends Sean, who stutters and capably defends himself against bullies. Their friendship leads to her learning jujitsu and judo, skills that come to help define her, end her abuse, and end many men’s lives. One scene, not unique, goes from “he was between her naked legs” to “His eyes rolled up, his tongue flopped loose, and his body went limp on top of her.” And she’s plenty smart enough to keep her name out of any investigations and not leave any traceable patterns. Livia determines that “she was never going to be ruled by fear again.” As an adult she becomes a cop in a Seattle PD sex crimes unit so she can hunt monsters who sexually abuse children “and put them in prison forever. Or else put them in the ground.” Over the years she never stops trying to find out what happened to Nason, an insatiable desire that’s a driving force in the plot. Eisler (The God's Eye View, 2016, etc.) writes sex scenes that are intense and disturbing, and the villains deserve all the pain Livia Lone can inflict.
Filled with raw power, this may be the darkest thriller of the year.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5039-3965-3
Page Count: 395
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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