Appealing characters energize this well-written detective tale.
In this sequel, private eye Jack Fox juggles new fatherhood with chasing organ harvesters.
Jack learned he was a dad only six months ago when Enid Iglowski showed up at his door. Both he and his 17-year-old daughter struggle settling into their new, shared life. This may explain Enid’s anger issues, like clocking a bully at her Arizona school. While dealing with his daughter’s troubles, Jack takes on a missing person case. His new client, Layla Orlov, hasn’t seen her Russian mail-order-bride sister in nearly a month. In a concurrent plot, local police detective Bud Orlean gets a phone call on one of his “restricted work days,” as his heart disease has relegated him to part-time. He works a gang-style shooting, a crime scene trumped by what fills the victim’s car’s trunk—assorted organs, most likely for the black market. Bud soon realizes this organ-harvesting investigation has ties to Jack’s case. It’s hardly surprising that those behind these macabre crimes are dangerous, and they soon set their eyes on Enid. As if this weren’t enough for Jack to handle, his former lover and alleged serial killer Eve Hargrove hits him with a bit of blackmail. Evidently, she’s pregnant with their child while still behind bars and awaiting trial. If he doesn’t marry her, Eve vows to kill the unborn baby. Jack has a mind-boggling decision to make, all while trying to close his case and keep his teen daughter safe.
This follow-up to Gunning for Angels(2014) stars an indelible cast whose assumptions advance the plot. For example, Enid spots insurance forms on Jack’s desk and becomes convinced her dad has plans to kill her. It’s a humorously absurd claim that adults, especially her school counselor, take seriously. But it’s also indicative of the girl’s understandable fear of abandonment; she’s certain Jack will leave her. The father-daughter relationship is authentic, portraying challenging and endearing moments; Jack’s simple compliments (“You’re better than that”) have more impact on Enid than he knows or she’s willing to admit. Each character likewise has their share of strengths and weaknesses. Enid runs away from her problems but not when others need help, and hotheaded, promiscuous Jack proves a tenacious investigator. This melodrama-infused story isn’t a typical mystery; pieces of what Jack, Bud, and even Enid discover mostly fall into place without too much effort. Nevertheless, the trio of atypical detectives unquestionably faces cruel, frightening villains. Lewis builds nerve-wracking set pieces, and uses razor-sharp prose: “Behind the pretty brown eyes was a shade of cold calculation that Jack recognized all too well from the plethora of not-so-young-anymore moms looking for a bankroll.” In the same vein, the author doesn’t shy away from violent, sometimes grotesque imagery.
Appealing characters energize this well-written detective tale.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Cathleen A. McCarthy
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.
It’s time to harvest the cherries from their Michigan orchard, but the pandemic means that Joe Nelson; his wife, Lara; and their daughters, Emily, Maisie, and Nell, must pick all the fruit themselves.
To lighten the lengthy, grueling workdays, and prompted by the recent death of world-famous actor Peter Duke, the girls press Lara to tell them about her romance with Duke at Tom Lake, a summer stock company in Michigan, and her decision to give up acting after one big movie role. Lara’s reminiscences, peppered by feisty comments from her daughters and periodic appearances by her gentle, steadfast husband, provide the foundation for Patchett’s moving portrait of a woman looking back at a formative period in her life and sharing some—but only some—of it with her children. Duke flashes across her recollections as a wildly talented, nakedly ambitious, and extremely crazy young man clearly headed for stardom, but the real interest in this portion of the novel lies in Patchett’s delicate delineation of Lara’s dawning realization that, fine as she is as Emily in Our Town, she has a limited talent and lacks the drive that propels Duke and her friend and understudy Pallas. The fact that Pallas, who's Black, doesn’t get the break that Duke does is one strand in Patchett’s intricate and subtle thematic web, which also enfolds the nature of storytelling, the evolving dynamics of a family, and the complex interaction between destiny and choice. Lara’s daughters are standouts among the sharply dawn characterizations: once-volatile Emily, now settled down to be the heir apparent to the farm; no-nonsense veterinarian-in-training Maisie; and Nell, the aspiring actor and unerring observer who anticipates every turn in her mother’s tale. Patchett expertly handles her layered plot, embedding one charming revelation and one brutal (but in retrospect inevitable) betrayal into a dual narrative that deftly maintains readers’ interest in both the past and present action. These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming.
Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780063327528
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
The time-honored post-breakup trip—“Eat, Shop, Party”—has life-changing results you needn’t believe to enjoy.
The suicide of a friend creates a lifelong bond among three college classmates.
The latest from the author of Something Borrowed opens at the University of Virginia, where four freshmen are about to find the connection that will sustain them through the next four years. They are Lainey, an aspiring actor from California; Tyson, a Black man with law in his future; Summer, a star scholar and varsity athlete; and Hannah, whose conservative Southern mother is going to be very disappointed that she’d rather hang with these three than pledge a sorority. Shortly before their graduation, the unthinkable happens: For reasons no one will ever fully understand, Summer takes her own life. This leads to the eponymous pact: The trio of survivors agree never to take “drastic steps” before reaching out. They are in their early 30s when the first reach-out occurs: Hannah has walked in on her fiance screwing the local Instagram influencer in the bed she just bought for their future marital home. Lainey, now a Hollywood actor on her way up, drops everything and jets in from California to extricate Hannah and exact revenge. Tyson shows up, too, though he has to quit his job and ditch his girlfriend to get there. Once that mess is cleaned up, the three leave on a fantasy getaway on which each gets to pick a stop. The rest of the story unfolds mostly on Capri, always a desirable setting in fiction, where our protagonists hit places like “that beach club [from] TikTok,” La Fontelina. (Do Google it.) Though shocking life changes befall each member of the trio during their Italian sojourn, none are much of a surprise to the reader, who will likely notice the exact moment each plot twist became inevitable. Be quiet and drink your Aperol Spritz.
The time-honored post-breakup trip—“Eat, Shop, Party”—has life-changing results you needn’t believe to enjoy.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593600290
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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