by Charles Kerns ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2022
An entertaining caper with a vivid California setting.
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It’s San Francisco in the 1970s, and a hippie is on the run from both the FBI and some nasty leftists in this mystery.
Young Fred Arnold, a world-class doofus, is at Family Day at the Lawrence Weapons Lab in the Bay Area when he wanders into the wrong building. A fire breaks out, and he sees a “ferret-faced” guy running away with some papers. The man drops a notebook; Fred picks it up; and the chase is on. Now the FBI is on the case, and Fred—with the help of his girlfriend, Rhonda, and his friend Paul Kendzierski—has to find the actual bad guys to clear his name. Fred and Paul flee to a commune up north and enlist the help of an older man named Red. The two protagonists eventually return to San Francisco, with Fred in disguise (he’s shorn off his beard, and his hair is now short), and set about luring the usual suspects, who include Maoists and Trotskyites, sworn enemies. The clever pair use Fred and the notebook (actually a fake notebook) as bait. The real culprits belong to a revolutionary outfit called the Summer Soldiers. They take Fred and Rhonda prisoner, and the plan is to hijack a plane to fly them all to Cuba. There is one cute fillip at the end. This is a very engaging mystery. Kerns revels in his vibrant characters and the ambiance of Haight-Ashbury, the Summer of Love, and all that. Besides love, aromas of patchouli and marijuana are in the air (Fred works part time in an incense factory, hence the novel’s title). Fred has a flair, or maybe it is just a tic, for making up amusing doggerel when he is happy or scared. A sample: “Summer Soldiers on the go / Plotting now to start the show / Got my pop gun—that thing’s hot / I just hope I don’t get shot.”
An entertaining caper with a vivid California setting.Pub Date: April 21, 2022
ISBN: 979-8801382470
Page Count: 169
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by David Baldacci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2024
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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by Louise Penny ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 29, 2024
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.
A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.
At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250328137
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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