This thriller, though gripping to the end, is a victim of its own niceness.
The three children of a murdered woman hide in plain sight.
Jack Bright, Bauer’s (The Beautiful Dead, 2017, etc.) plucky main character, is only 14, but he's the sole support of what’s left of his family. Three years ago, in 1998, Jack’s mother, Eileen, left him and his two younger sisters in their broken-down car while she went in search of a roadside telephone. Her body was found several days later, and the children’s father, after trying to cope, disappeared. Now, unbeknownst to social services and truancy officers, Jack and his sisters, Joy and Merry, still inhabit their clutter-bound family home. Jack and Merry maintain the exterior to put off authorities. Jack also maintains the family’s fragile economy by burglarizing homes, stealing only healthy food and occasionally napping in a victim’s bed. Thanks to the consistency of this M.O., the police call him the Goldilocks burglar, although they're not even close to identifying or nabbing him. The book's third-person perspective shifts among multiple characters, major and minor, but is always vividly real. Heavily pregnant Catherine, whose husband, Adam, is away on business, drives off an unseen home invader only to find an abalone-handled knife placed next to a scrawled note: “I could have killed you.” A never entirely credible reluctance stops her from calling the police or telling Adam. Marvel, a senior detective exiled to “darkest Somerset” after a fall from grace at his London post, disdains the hunt for Goldilocks as much as he longs for a homicide case. Reynolds, a vain but deeply insecure detective, visits his aging mother often at her new home but ignores her concerns about the three seemingly feral children next door. Perspectives and offhand clues converge as Marvel finds that a rash of small-town burglaries just might lead to a career-salvaging murder investigation and to the cold case of Eileen Bright. All of the characters, though flawed human beings in varying degrees, are likable, which gets in the way of creating a convincing villain.
This thriller, though gripping to the end, is a victim of its own niceness.Pub Date: July 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2774-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Thriller fans will delight in this latest escapade. Cussler and co-author Burcell have delivered a winner.
The 10th and latest Sam and Remi Fargo adventure (The Romanov Ransom, 2017, etc.) is a fast-paced tale that reaches back to the early days of automotive glory.
In Manchester, England, in 1906, the Gray Ghost has gone missing. That’s the Rolls-Royce prototype developed by Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, and the loss threatens to financially ruin them. They hire a detective to locate it, but he is murdered. In the present day, Sam and Remi Fargo hear about the car, which turned up after World War II but is now missing again. It's always been owned by the Payton family, which generations ago was the Oren-Payton family, and may be worth many millions of dollars. Raising the stakes even higher, the 1906 thieves may have hidden treasure inside the car, though there was no trace of it when the Gray Ghost was found after the war. But jealous modern-day cousin Arthur Oren has the car stolen and then loses track of it—has the thief he hired stolen it twice? It’s a complicated and clever plot, with Sam and Remi trying to find it for the current owner, Lord Albert Payton, Viscount Wellswick. The 1906 journal of Jonathon Payton, fifth Viscount Wellswick, provides a solid backstory. The Fargos are great series characters, whip-smart and altruistic self-made multimillionaires who can afford to take time from their charity work to dabble in dangerous adventures. Oren knows they’re involved, and he wants them both dead and the car returned. An accomplice suggests first making the Fargos destitute by freezing their bank accounts and credit cards. Then the bad guys can arrange a fake suicide. It’s fun to watch Sam and Remi get out of dicey scrapes, once by driving an Ahrens-Fox pumper fire engine out of a blazing building. Oren asks, “How hard is it to knock off two socialites?” He finds out the hard way; he should have just acquainted himself with Cussler’s series.
Thriller fans will delight in this latest escapade. Cussler and co-author Burcell have delivered a winner.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1873-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.
A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.
Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
