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GHOST UPS HER GAME

A charmer of a detective, a twisty mystery, and a feel-good story that’s balm for our troubled times.

The rebel of the Department of Good Intentions bypasses the rules once more to help those in need.

Though Oklahoma-born Bailey Ruth Raeburn has often tried the patience of Wiggins, her heavenly boss, the redheaded rule breaker has a long and successful record of solving crimes back in her old hometown. Assigning herself the newest problem in Adelaide, she drops down from heaven to see Robert Blair and Iris Gallagher standing over a dead body. Iris is holding a homemade sap but denies killing fundraiser Matt Lambert. Robert ditches the murder weapon while Bailey Ruth converses with Iris, that rare person who can see her and admire her fashion sense. Since Iris refuses to call police chief Sam Cobb, who’s worked with Bailey Ruth before, Bailey Ruth is forced to protect both Iris and Robert, a fledgling lawyer who’s the boyfriend of Iris’ daughter Gage, while researching Lambert, who, despite all the money he’s raised for Goddard College, is not universally beloved. Aided by her ability to go anywhere unseen if she desires or appear to people and take on any persona that suits the moment, she interviews everyone from Lambert’s family to his girlfriend and business acquaintances. Despite all her tips and hints to the contrary, the police chief targets Iris. So Bailey Ruth must be extra creative this time in winkling out the killer.

A charmer of a detective, a twisty mystery, and a feel-good story that’s balm for our troubled times.

Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-7278-9047-4

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Severn House

Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

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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THE FROZEN RIVER

A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.

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When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.

Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.

A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.

Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023

ISBN: 9780385546874

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023

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