A marvelous tale that will satisfy historical fiction enthusiasts.
A 19th-century journalist becomes a potential target in a mission to kill the queen in this thriller.
It’s 1897, and Margaret Harkness is a 40-year-old writer who describes herself as a suffragette and Christian socialist. She’s working on freelance pieces for newspapers when she’s diagnosed with “something resembling lupus.” Her illness and age make her consider retirement to Australia, but she’s doesn’t have the money necessary for the journey. As a result, she accepts a job with her old friend professor Joseph Bell—a real-life figure who provided author Arthur Conan Doyle with the inspiration for his famed fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes. Bell’s latest spy-hunting assignment takes the two to Germany, where Harkness works as Bell’s translator. However, their mission coincides with that of Herman Ott, a man with a connection to the Russian revolutionary group Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”), who’s on a mission of revenge against Queen Victoria. Soon, Harkness discovers that she, herself, is in danger, as well. Harper, the author of A Knife in the Fog (2018), offers an excellent continuation of Harkness’ adventures. All of the characters are vivid creations, but the middle-aged Harkness is a standout as a middle-aged female protagonist—a demographic that’s unfortunately rare in thriller fiction. Harper’s prose is often as humorous as it is well researched; an early scene in which Harkness meets Queen Victoria and deals with a snobbish chamberlain is but one of many fine examples of his skill. Harper seamlessly and enjoyably blends elements of historical fact with a thrilling story of political intrigue and anarchy. There are some slightly slow moments, but they’re few and far between, and Harkness’ sharp intellect and delightful personality more than make up for them.
A marvelous tale that will satisfy historical fiction enthusiasts.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64506-001-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Apart from recurring characters, this entry is less interested in live people than in dead animals.
Dr. Temperance Brennan tackles the case of a serial killer of animals who’s been ascending the food chain over a period of years.
The unnerving vision that causes an elderly woman to drive off a rainy road in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, turns out to be a painted head nailed to a tree. Even more disquieting than this discovery is Tempe’s realization that it’s only the latest of a series of heads similarly disfigured, decorated, and displayed as death’s heads. The only thing that prevents the perp, whoever it is, from being threatened with life imprisonment is that none of the remains are human: They’re all skulls of rats, squirrels, rabbits, skunks, and dogs, the earliest of them three years old. Tempe and Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, the surly retired police investigator who partners with her, suspect that the killer, whose latest display does contain some human bones, is working up to killing people, and they turn out to be all too correct. Just in case Tempe is looking for relief from this stressful case at home, her willful 17-year-old grandniece, Ruthie, has overcome her resistance to setting foot on the campus of UNC Charlotte and made contact with Lester Meloy, a grad student who’s supplied her with weed, and Danielle Hall, his fellow member in a secretive group called “Live.” Ruthie inevitably goes missing and Tempe is kidnapped herself before all the promising complications of the case are waved aside in favor of a solution that comes out of left field and answers almost none of the sharpest questions the mystery has raised.
Apart from recurring characters, this entry is less interested in live people than in dead animals.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668051474
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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