Idiosyncratic characters annoy rather than charm in this book-centric cozy that doesn’t have the humor or lightness of...
Trying to solve the kidnapping of a friend’s daughter sounds more compelling than leading a Portland writers' conference to an out-of-town writer who's suddenly been put in charge.
After establishing herself with some success as an author—and how much success can the average author even expect?—Charlemagne Russo, known to friends as Charlee, agrees to speak at a writers’ conference as a favor to a friend. When Charlee arrives in Portland, she expects her friend and the conference organizer, Viv Lundquist, to want a little help with the final conference plans, but Viv has other ideas. After telling Charlee that her adult daughter, Hanna, has been kidnapped, Viv pressures Charlee to take the reins of the rest of the conference organizing, from stuffing gift bags to herding volunteers. Charlee is agreeable (though Viv’s harried entitlement might make someone who was less of a softie turn her back on the request) and tries to do what she can in a sort of Murphy’s Law of conference planning. First, it seems that the conference site, the Pacific Portland Hotel, has double-booked a dog agility show for the same days, and the hotel staff doesn’t seem to think this is a problem. Then an East Coast storm means that many of the prestigious workshop leaders may be unable to make it for their sessions, but Viv doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem if Charlee steps in and offers professional writing advice in their steads. Charlee’s almost at her wits' end with Viv’s requests and loses patience when Viv is willing to embezzle conference fees to pay Hanna’s ransom. All of this leads Charlee to wonder if Hanna has been kidnapped at all or if Viv is looking for an excuse to liquidate the funds for herself. Drawing on her past success in investigating, Charlee decides the time has come for her to get to the bottom of Hanna’s disappearance, even if the truth implicates someone she once trusted.
Idiosyncratic characters annoy rather than charm in this book-centric cozy that doesn’t have the humor or lightness of Clark’s debut mystery (Fiction Can Be Murder, 2018, etc.).Pub Date: April 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7387-5366-9
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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