A compact and often compelling police procedural.
In Arnold’s murder mystery, detectives must dig deep into victims’ lives to identify a bloodthirsty killer.
When Madison Knight sets out on a drive to shake off her disturbing nightmares, she doesn’t expect to find a corpse brutally disposed of in a ditch—but predictability isn’t a cornerstone of her profession. As a detective with the StilesPolice Department, Knight has spent years solving crimes. This most recent one, however, is particularly shocking due to the killer’s violent treatment of the body—which was stabbed and stuffed into luggage—and because the deceased, Tara Jackson, was well loved in the community. The 21-year-old daughter of a wealthy, renowned neurosurgeon spent most of her time and money giving back to society. Everyone who knew her speaks of her with admiration, often going out of their way to make sure that investigators know that she wasn’t a stereotypical, spoiled rich kid: “She wanted to earn her own way. I’m talking hard work,” says one interviewee. But as Knight and her partner, Terry Grant, follow the few clues they have, they begin to wonder if Tara was living a double life. After another body is found, the detectives are certain they have a serial killer on their hands. Knight is effectively shown to be a dedicated, occasionally overzealous protagonist who puts her personal life—and sometimes even the rules of her job—aside when there’s a mystery to solve. The high stakes of her profession weigh on Knight, and Arnold makes her guilt, anxiety, and paranoia palpable. The protagonist often acts rashly and is overcritical of those around her, but she remains an intriguing character. The story is told largely in dialogue, and as such, the book often feels like a transcript of a TV crime show; like such programs, it generally moves quickly, but readers may wish for a few more plot twists or jaw-dropping moments. Still, this is a page-turner with a few shocks here and there—particularly in chapters told from the perspective of the unknown killer, whose gruesome thoughts are hard to stomach.
A compact and often compelling police procedural.Pub Date: May 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781989706978
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Hibbert & Stiles Publishing Inc.
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.
An aspiring mystery writer sets out to solve her great-aunt’s murder and inherit an estate.
Twenty-five-year-old Annie Adams has never met her great-aunt Frances, who prefers her small village to busy London. But when a mysterious letter arrives instructing Annie to come to Castle Knoll in Dorset to meet Frances and discuss her role as sole beneficiary of her great-aunt’s estate, Annie can’t resist. Unfortunately, she arrives to find Frances’ worst fears have come true: The elderly woman—who’s been haunted for decades by a fortuneteller’s prediction that this will happen—has been murdered, and her will dictates that she will leave her entire estate to Annie, but only if Annie solves her killing. It’s a cheeky if not exactly believable premise, especially since the local police don’t seem terribly opposed to it. Annie herself is an engaging presence, if a little too blind to the fact that she could be on the killer’s to-do list. Her roll call of suspects is pleasingly long, including but not limited to the local vicar, a one-time paramour of her great-aunt’s; a gardener who grows a lot more than flowers; shady developers and suspicious friends from Frances’ past; and Saxon, Annie’s crafty rival, who inherits the estate himself if he manages to solve the case first. Annie pieces together clues through readings of Frances’ journal, but the story eventually runs aground on the twin rocks of too much explanation and a flimsy climax. Cute dialogue gives way to lengthy exposition, and by the time Frances’ killer is revealed you may well be ready to leave Annie, Dorset, and Castle Knoll behind for the firmer ground of reality. Fans of cozy mysteries are likely to be more forgiving, but if you cast a skeptical eye toward amateur sleuths, this novel won’t change your mind about them.
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474013
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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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