MacDougal’s third (Angle of Impact, 1998, etc.) finds the author in ripping form, her writing keener and more glamorous than ever. Center-stage this time is a self-made Philadelphia lawyer who marries into fashionable Wilmington society, only to find herself in a world she never knew and facing an aspect of her husband she never suspected. Campbell Smith, whose specialty is tracing assets in divorce cases, has no hint that one reason she was pursued to the altar by fellow lawyer Doug Alexander after her Philadelphia firm merged with Doug’s smaller Delaware firm was that she came to him with no baggage from the past that would have to be overcome politically. For Doug’s old family friend Senator Ashton Ramsey suddenly announces at their fancy country wedding reception that Doug is the Party’s choice to run in November for the US House of Representatives. Campbell, though stunned, can’t understand why the Party has chosen Doug, a self-effacing real-estate lawyer of middling charm, but no great candidate. On the way to the reception she has happened to see Senator Ramsey’s 13-year-old son, Trey, on a wilding spree, knocking over country mailboxes; and this very evening Trey is kidnaped while secretary Gloria Lipton of Campbell and Doug’s firm is abducted, raped and murdered. Cam says that Gloria’s an orphan whose parents were murdered by Muslims in the Philippines. But does her brutal murder have something to do with Cam—who may have baggage after all that could compromise Doug’s run? And why does Senator Ramsey show more concern for politics than for his missing son? Then Doris Palumbo, an associate of Gloria’s, is murdered too, followed by Joan Truesdale, who’d also been part of—well, let’s not say. The gore aside, MacDougal writes with heart, Cam being a character who bears real feelings, not only the burdens of melodrama. Even the ending avoids standard showdown clichÇs. Bravo.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-345-43444-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Schneider’s debut enlivens the police procedural with offbeat characters and an appealingly complex hero.
Hollywood detectives catch the strange case of a brutally burned body.
Detective Tully Jarsdel is a former academic, leading his partner, Morales, to call him Professor. When he fights his way through multiple news crews to reach a corpse one day, it's unlike any he’s ever seen. The body is twisted, partially ravaged, and burned so badly it’s unrecognizable. Jarsdel and Morales intensely question Dustin Sparks, the horror-movie special-effects expert who found the body. He eventually admits that he saw the body being dumped from a van, but his addiction to OxyContin makes him a compromised witness. While waiting for DNA results, Jarsdel and Morales watch missing persons reports closely. An odd red disk glued to the victim’s palm turns out to be a 1996 quarter painted red: the case’s first clue, albeit a murky one. DNA connects the victim to grizzled convict Lawrence Wolin, who identifies the man as his brother. The pieces of Grant Wolin’s life come together via interviews prompted by a search of his dirty apartment. He sold jars of “genuine Hollywood dirt” on the street, smoked marijuana occasionally, and was apparently asexual. A dinner scene at the home of Jarsdel’s scholarly parents provides insight into his psyche and his sense of isolation. Though he fits in with neither the gritty world of police work nor the ivory tower of academia, he has a passion for justice.
Schneider’s debut enlivens the police procedural with offbeat characters and an appealingly complex hero.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8444-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Light on surprises and character development, this tepid thriller will have most astute readers correctly guessing the...
An accident forces a man to return to his small Iowa hometown and confront violent secrets from his past, ones he’s kept hidden from his wife.
Sarah Quinlan thought she knew everything about her husband, Jack: an accident killed his parents when he was 15 so he left Penny Gate, Iowa, and has only been back once. But when the couple gets news that Jack’s beloved aunt Julia, who raised Jack and his younger sister, Amy, after their parents’ deaths, is gravely injured in a fall, the prodigal son returns. Gudenkauf (Little Mercies, 2014, etc.) makes it clear from the start that nothing should be taken at face value, not Jack’s story about his parents (his mother was actually bludgeoned to death, and his father, now MIA, was the prime suspect) or the seemingly idyllic small-town atmosphere. This, however, does little to heighten the suspense as advice columnist Sarah takes on the role of amateur detective in sniffing out Quinlan family secrets past and present. Through her we meet Jack’s terse cousin Dean and his too-perfect wife, Celia, along with Julia’s husband, Hal, who became like a father to Jack in the wake of his own family tragedy, and Amy, who couldn’t be more stereotypically “troubled.” Jack and Amy’s tragic past, which becomes the central mystery of the plot once Sarah figures out that her husband has been lying to her for two decades, is tied to Julia’s not-so-accidental fall, but only for the purposes of a neatly sewn-up plot.
Light on surprises and character development, this tepid thriller will have most astute readers correctly guessing the ending halfway through.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1865-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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