The dark streets of St. Louis star in this compelling third installment of the ’Nam Noir series (St. Louis Hustle, 2011; The Wrong Side of Memphis, 2009) by mystery author Applewhite.
Seeking respite from his anxiety, Cobra visits creepy Dr. Jules Derry. When it becomes clear this unlicensed physician longs to perform on humans the sort of testing he does on animals, Cobra and Elvin Suggs, his colleague from the Grapevine Detective Agency, flee Derry’s clinic. At their shared home, Dimond (Di) Redding, the third agency member, apprehensively observes the activities of their new neighbors, local gangsters by the name of Tattaglia. Unlike most people, Elvin takes being greeted by a gun while making a “welcome to the neighborhood” visit in stride. Helen, yet another neighbor and daughter-in-law of the un-neighborly Tattaglias, enlists the agency’s help to determine whether her in-laws have a hit out on her. Meanwhile, sexy Barbara Lacey is attracting attention at the Night and Day Bar, which leads to her being shot and killed in the alley out back. Investigating her death, Det. Reggie Combs reveals a whole cast of exotic dancers with temptingly sweet monikers such as Candy Rapper and Lolli Popp—and even more surprising ties to other characters. As the number of murder victims and break-ins in their neighborhood mount, Reggie, Cobra and Elvin dig deeper, but Di’s inexplicable fascination with Derry distracts her. Applewhite’s St. Louis setting steals the show, as her offbeat characters too often cross the line from idiosyncratic to purely strange. Outlandish names manage to confuse more than entertain, and secondary characters from previous books further baffle readers new to the series. Vulnerable Di, a 50something widow with a lot of looks and life still in her, is the most charismatic, challenged only by Vanna the Airedale. Applewhite would benefit by applying her skills to editing her cast of characters, so the reader can get by without taking notes. Taut writing, memorable characterization and a superbly evocative setting.
Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2011
ISBN: 978-1603184298
Page Count: 223
Publisher: L & L Dreamspell
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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