A relatable hero and genuine suspense make up for the less-than-credible plot points.
Troubles multiply for a bar owner stalked by a serial killer in this mystery.
Spirited New York City bar owner Jude Dillane returns in this third outing of Stoler’s Murder on the Rocksseries. Also back: sadistic murderer Art Bevins, the New Year’s Eve Serial Killer, still at large after escaping capture in Last Call(2020)and more determined than ever to add Jude to his victim list. As if that’s not enough, Jude may lose her beloved bar, The Corner Lounge, because her partner and chef, Pete Angel, can’t take any more mayhem, and one of her friends appears to be keeping criminal company. In addition, there’s something suspicious about glamorous Dolores Castel, now living in the killer’s former apartment in Jude’s building and making a play for the protagonist’s close friend Sully, the complex’s owner. At least Jude’s boyfriend, Eric Ramirez, has returned after their breakup, occasioned by her inability to stay out of danger and leave investigating to the authorities. (Fans of the series likely identified with Eric’s frustration; Jude’s concern that her actions put others in peril and upended personal relationships seemed shallow at best.) The author has somewhat softened that dynamic in this installment, though Jude dismisses the possible consequences if the killer learns of her visit to a key figure in the case, an older stage director. She also eludes one of her FBI bodyguards to do some independent sleuthing, fully aware that the agent could lose his job if her action is discovered. But with her business, her friends’ well-being, and her life on the line, Jude’s determination to find her own answers—despite a few of her huffy but significant “I’ll do it myself” lapses—is balanced by a more realistic, if grudging, awareness that a person who is being stalked by a sadistic killer may very well need a couple of FBI agents on hand as protection. She finally decides that keeping law enforcement in the loop is a good idea. Stoler adds a high level of suspense by periodically shifting from Jude’s first-person narration to Dolores’ third-person point of view, although the twist within a twist involving this femme fatale is quite a stretch.
A relatable hero and genuine suspense make up for the less-than-credible plot points.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Exciting adventure that’s worthy of the Cussler name.
The Oregon crew takes on a villain who bears a long-festering grudge.
In 1945, a captured American soldier unwillingly took part in a ghastly experiment. In the current day, a malign force has built on that research and plans to wreak unholy vengeance on Guam and, ultimately, on the United States. A mysterious, much-feared man called the Vendor, an arms purveyor whose increasingly dangerous weapons have just slaughtered soldiers in Niger, is testing his killing craft in the Indian Ocean. The Vendor’s reach extends as far as Kosovo and the Celebes Sea off the Philippines, where North Koreans try out some of his handiwork. Luckily, a modest-looking cargo ship plies the seas. It’s the Oregon, with all the internal wizardry one might wish for. It has a Cray computer, Cordon Bleu–trained chefs, and plenty of amenities to keep a top-notch crew dedicated. The seawater-powered ship can even change its outward appearance to disguise itself as the lowliest third-world rust bucket. In charge of this marvel is Juan Cabrillo, the protagonist. The crew of the Oregon are independent contractors and undertake an urgent mission from the CIA to investigate arms trafficking by the Taliban. That leads to an inevitable collision with the Vendor, whose tentacles reach far and wide. This might spell the end for Cabrillo because the Vendor “had proven himself unequaled in unarmed combat.” The Oregon Files series is always fun, and this episode is no exception. Cabrillo is a terrific leader in top physical shape, but he and the ship itself are tested to their limits. Of course, some of Oregon’s features beggar belief, but never you mind. They fit in well with the now-and-then over-the-top writing: “A giant piece of red-hot aluminum sliced through Juan’s fragile canopy like a drunken samurai’s katana through a rice-paper wall.” It’s hard to read a simile like that and not stop and smile. And in the same action sequence, the hero hits an object “like a speeding hockey forward cross-checking a parked Zamboni.” Ouch. It all “hurt like the dickens,” which is about as salty as the language gets.
Exciting adventure that’s worthy of the Cussler name.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593719244
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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