New and recurring characters alike reinforce this solid mystery series installment.
The scorched remains of a body in the woods leads a Montana deputy to a sex-trafficking cult in this thriller.
Residents of Monastery Valley spent much of August battling wildfires. So they quickly notice smoke coming from the forest during the community’s Labor Day fireworks show. Looking into the matter, Deputy Andi Pelton finds a smoldering cabin. The human bones among the rubble could be the result of an accident, but clues found at the scene later upgrade the case to murder. Around the same time, Andi’s psychologist boyfriend, Ed Northrup, sees a female patient who displays signs of multiple personalities and cryptically tells him, “Bishop burned the lady in the fire.” Instead of the woman returning for treatment, Ed receives an anonymous note implying she’s been kidnapped. Ritual aspects to the murder point to a cult’s involvement. So Ed, who’s treated cult survivors, joins the investigation. It’s soon apparent that the potential cult and Ed’s enigmatic patient are somehow tied to sex trafficking. Ed and Andi’s personal lives are already in disarray, as she remains reluctant to accept his marriage proposal. And the case isn’t making things any easier, particularly after an unauthorized cleanup of the crime scene and the inexplicable disappearance of evidence. As in earlier novels in Percy’s (Nobody’s Safe Here, 2016, etc.) series, dynamic characters are immersed in fully engaging melodrama. In this third installment, Andi and Ed’s relationship is complicated by her attraction to a deputy and the psychologist’s unconcealed jealousy. Likewise, Ed’s 17-year-old adopted daughter, Grace, is anticipating losing her virginity during Homecoming festivities. The mystery is initially riveting, especially the intermittent perspectives from the ambiguous but unsettling baddies. But the latter half loses a bit of steam: Readers will likely foresee a plot turn well before Andi does. Still, the author’s confident writing turns seemingly mundane scenes into memorable moments, as when Ed’s new truck horn at a parade, “which could’ve served a tug boat in a night hurricane,” inadvertently silences the cheering crowd.
New and recurring characters alike reinforce this solid mystery series installment.Pub Date: April 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-014-0
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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