A colorful suspense novel with deep New Orleans roots and an intriguing cast of characters.
Black’s hardboiled detective novel, part of his Erica Banks series, features a contract killer and a baseball-fixing scandal.
Assassin Erica Banks returns to New Orleans to execute a series of high-profile hits contracted by a Cuban drug ring. Banks is a highly experienced professional, and at first, the murders leave law enforcement baffled. Lawyer Harry Barnes, a fixer who doesn’t always stick to the right side of the law, gets involved when an ex-girlfriend asks him to help clear the name of her uncle, who was one of the victims: Chick Charbonnet, the umpire who “handed the World Series to the wildly underdog New York Mets” over the Red Sox. Accusations of game-fixing have been stirred up again by his gruesome murder. Barnes enlists his colleague, astute hacker Rhonda Dickerman, to help him look into Chick’s past, and they begin to uncover a much larger conspiracy involving high-rolling gamblers, the international drug trade, and an assassin. While this is technically an Erica Banks novel, with her perspective included, the protagonist of this series installment is very much Barnes. With connections to every major player in town, he robustly fulfills the well-connected, straight-shooting noir stereotype. Barnes’ previous activities are often described in a bit too much detail—the first handful of his reminiscences adequately establish his bona fides, but later inclusions become repetitive as he exhaustively details every meal and drink he consumes. While many of the restaurants visited are New Orleans institutions and furnish local color, the effect loses impact after so many interchangeable iterations. Though Barnes is the primary narrator, chapters from the perspectives of Banks, Dickerman, and several other supporting players provide necessary context and add compelling variety to the narrative. While readers may put together a few heavy-handed clues before Barnes does, the mix of action and investigation will appeal to fans of James Patterson and David Baldacci.
A colorful suspense novel with deep New Orleans roots and an intriguing cast of characters.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2025
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett has been shot plenty of times before. But this time may be the last.
As Joe hovers between life and death in a Billings hospital, Box indicates that Dorn Peddy and James Dale O’Bryan are the two men who ambushed him, shot him, and left him for dead. But he doesn’t reveal who hired them or why. That’s left up to Joe’s three daughters: bird-abatement firm chief executive Sheridan, Bozeman private eye April, and University of Wyoming undergrad Lucy. Since the man who reported the incident to the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department has disappeared, the most that newly appointed Sheriff Steve Sondergard can do is to warn Sheridan and her sisters away from the case. But the fact that both the shooters and the witness seem to have come from one of exactly three places presents an obvious appeal to the younger Picketts, who plan to each visit one place and question the owners simultaneously before they can warn each other that anyone’s coming. The only problem is that all the possible suspects—billionaire Michael Thompson and his wife, Brandy, of the Double Diamond Ranch; ranchers John and Shelby Bucholz, of the Bucholz Cattle Company; and secretive sisters Lisa and Lainie McElwee, of McElwee Land and Cattle Ranch—act equally guilty. As Box unspools a series of flashbacks showing what Joe was up to in the weeks before the ambush, one question assumes paramount importance: Can Joe’s daughters identify which of them is behind the plot to murder their father before the hired gunmen visit the hospital and try again?
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593851098
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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