A diverting whodunit bolstered by a laudable, complex detective.
A California private eye puts himself and others in peril while digging into a triple-murder cold case in this first installment of a thriller series.
Chad Kidd, a former Palm Springs cop-turned-private investigator, looks into the murder of Chloe Nelson from four years ago. She was the teenage daughter of Kidd’s former colleague Phil Nelson, a retired lieutenant. Firefighters found the charred remains of Chloe; her mother (and Phil’s ex-wife), Diana; and Diana’s boyfriend, Dan Brady, at a house fire, though all three were dead from gunshots. But as Chloe’s burning body was in a wheelbarrow in the front yard, Kidd and Phil surmise the teen was the primary target. There’s a slew of people for Kidd to interrogate, from Lizzy Grant (the teen’s best friend who’s devoted a Facebook page to finding the killer) to Jay Strait (Chloe’s ex-boyfriend who Lizzy and Phil are convinced is guilty). Before long, an anonymous Facebook message and phone call threaten Lizzy to stay quiet, and Kidd notices a Dodge Charger following him around. While the PI updates his growing suspect list, he also notes a possible tie between drug dealers and the murder case. The increasingly dangerous investigation ultimately leads to further intimidation, more than one kidnapping, and, sadly, additional deaths. Perry (To the North, 2018, etc.) gets this swift mystery off to a running start, with Kidd already investigating and Phil providing case details. Readers only know as much as the detective, and identifying the culprit who committed the murders isn’t easy. Moreover, Kidd becomes a more complicated character as the story continues. He starts a dalliance with someone connected to the case and is flustered by the impending release of Goran Markovic, who had been awaiting trial for gunning down Kidd’s cop fiancee, Erin Jade. Though the mystery eventually unravels on its own, it’s still a treat to watch the sleuth in frequent scenes of interrogations. His easygoing demeanor tends to make others talkative, and he has a holstered Glock 17 in case the interviewee turns aggressive.
A diverting whodunit bolstered by a laudable, complex detective.Pub Date: April 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-09-336820-8
Page Count: 317
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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