A highly readable whodunit that’s well grounded in social issues.
A gay Latino writer turns detective when a series of apparent hate crimes rocks his small town in VanPatten’s mystery.
Aspiring middle-aged novelist Will Christian is pedaling hard on his daily cardio bike ride in the fictional town of Mañana in California’s fertile Central Valley when he comes across a flock of vultures devouring a large carcass. He queasily recognizes a human hand rising from the remains, which are soon identified as those of 22-year-old Sergio Ramirez; like Will, he’s gay and Latino, and Will’s writerly curiosity kicks in as he begins to wonder if the man’s death could be a hate crime. His week is made even more eventful when he meets José Torres, a handsome grocery store worker who seems to be his perfect romantic match, while out shopping. Will’s fascination with the murder mystery is heightened when the body of another handsome, young, gay Latino man is found; at the same time, Will remains troubled by a memory of his high school friend, who may also have been killed for being gay and Latino. But as Will finds himself drawn further into the investigation, asking locals for help and pursuing potential leads with a dating app, he could become the killer’s next target. VanPatten presents an affable and relatable amateur detective in Will, and the story immediately draws readers in by placing the gruesome discovery of the first body in the opening paragraphs. Will’s immediate attention to the possible racial aspect of the crime and the account of his first meeting with José have a feeling of authenticity, as does the men’s encounter with a local homophobe. However, some readers may wish that the author had explored some facets of the narrative more deeply, such as the history of Will’s close relationship with his lesbian sister. The story has some lighter moments, but the story also presents a keen exploration of American racism, which, as Will says, “coursed through this country’s veins like cheap vodka in a drunk’s bloodstream.”
A highly readable whodunit that’s well grounded in social issues.Pub Date: July 8, 2021
ISBN: 979-8737025731
Page Count: 345
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2021
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
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
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