Bracingly familiar pleasures expertly packaged. The two families’ fraught history, tangled enough to fuel a whole season of...
In his 17th adventure, Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett (Off the Grid, 2016, etc.) goes another 15 rounds with surviving members of the toxic Cates family.
Joe has run into ex-everything Dave Farkus too many times in too many unsavory ways to expect any favors from him. So he’s doubly surprised when Farkus phones him from Stockman’s Bar to say he’s overheard a conversation about Joe and his family before he’s abruptly cut off. Joe’s concern turns to alarm when Farkus disappears from a hunting trip, and his blood is curdled by the discoveries of dead Farkus and disconcertingly alive Dallas Cates, the disgraced rodeo star who ran off with Joe’s daughter April, dumped her out of his truck, and ended up in the prison he’s just been released from, hungry for vengeance for the deaths of his father and two brothers. County attorney Dulcie Schalk has no trouble linking Dallas to the dead man, but high-priced defense attorney Marcus Hand, now married to Joe’s scheming, useless mother-in-law, Miss Vankueren, has even less trouble getting the charges dropped, leaving Dallas and his two hirelings free to roam the trails of Ten Sleep County, virtually immune from prosecution, as they ponder new ways to menace the Picketts. Can Joe gather enough evidence to neutralize Dallas before the charismatic sociopath, whose paralyzed mother, Brenda, is the queen bee of the Wyoming Department of Corrections’ Women’s Center, neutralizes Joe and his whole family?
Bracingly familiar pleasures expertly packaged. The two families’ fraught history, tangled enough to fuel a whole season of high-country soap opera, keeps this installment from being the best place to take the initial plunge into the franchise, but first-timers will be intrigued and fans amply rewarded.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-17661-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue.
“It is a dangerous time to be alive.” Indeed, as this fast-paced thriller by seasoned mysterian Pavone (The Travelers, 2016, etc.) proves.
A siren wails in Paris, a once-rare sound often heard in these times of terror. It’s gone off because a jihadi has strapped a bomb to himself and is standing in front of the Louvre, “in the epicenter of Western civilization,” waiting for his moment. But is he a jihadi? Who’s put him up to this dastardly deed, and why? That’s for Kate Moore, deep-cover CIA agent, “sidewalk-swimming in a sea of expat moms,” to suss out. Kate lives in a shadow world, so hidden away that even her hedge-fund-master husband doesn’t have a clue about what she does: “Dexter has been forced to accept that she’s entitled to her secrets,” Pavone writes, adding, “He’s had plenty of his own.” Indeed, and in the shadowy parallel world of speculative finance, he’s teamed up with a fast-living entrepreneur who wants nothing more than to become superrich and run off with his “assistant-concubine.” Hunter Forsyth is about to announce a huge deal, but suddenly he’s disappeared, whisked away by shadowy people who, by the thin strings of suspense, have something to do with that bomb across town. So does a vengeful young mom, strapped to a useless husband and bent on payback for a long-ago slight. All this is red meat to Kate, who’s tired of the domestic life, no matter how much a sham, and is happier than a clam when “running her network of journalists, bloggers, influencers, as well as drug dealers, thieves, prostitutes, and cops, plus diplomats and soldiers, maitre d’s and concierges and bartenders and shopkeepers.” With all those players, mercenaries, and assorted bad guys thrown into the mix, you just know that the storyline is going to be knotty, and it resolves in a messy spatter of violence that’s trademark Pavone and decidedly not for the squeamish.
A satisfying puzzler, one to shelve alongside le Carré, Forsyth, and other masters of foreign intrigue.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6150-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Although the pace of this intricate tale is necessarily slow, the investigation and its ultimate destination are gripping.
An investigation into an 11-year-old murder unearths some surprising revelations in Inspector Ian Rutledge’s 21st case (The Gate Keeper, 2018, etc.).
Rutledge survived World War I shellshocked and living with the ghostly voice of Hamish, a comrade who died in his arms. When he helps a former soldier find his wife, the grateful man gives him a tip that might help Rutledge find one of the most wanted men in Britain, Alan Barrington, who was accused of murder over a decade earlier and hasn't been seen since. Rutledge's boss gives him the unwelcome job of following up the clue, which begins the inspector's unrelenting search for the truth. Barrington had been accused of engineering a motor crash that killed Blanche Thorne and gravely injured her second husband, Harold Fletcher-Munro. Barrington had been positive that Fletcher-Munro drove Barrington’s friend Mark Thorne to financial ruin and suicide so he could marry Blanche. Rutledge starts out by investigating Barrington’s friends, including his lawyer and estate agent, both of whom have known him for years. When each refuses to confirm or deny that he’s still alive, Rutledge begins to consider the possibility that Mark Thorne did not commit suicide but was murdered by one of the several men who wanted Blanche. Conversations with friends and relatives of the parties involved with Blanche reveal many conflicting opinions. Each snippet Rutledge gleans leads him deeper into a complex maze, but he never considers giving up even when his own wartime demons come to the fore.
Although the pace of this intricate tale is necessarily slow, the investigation and its ultimate destination are gripping.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-267874-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
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