Though Izner's sixth (In the Shadow of Paris, 2011, etc.) rambles quite a bit, the digressions provide a delightfully frothy...
A sinister society provides a point of entry for sleuthing Parisian bookseller Victor Legris to solve a baffling series of murders.
On the first Sunday in January 1894, as a violent storm wracks the Normandy coast, ship's captain Corentin Jourdan rescues a young woman from the icy water. After neighbors whisk her off to safety, Jourdan looks into her bag and is annoyed when he realizes that its contents compel him to travel to Paris. Once there, he awkwardly searches in the Tenderloin District for certain people whose names appear in a notebook from the girl's bag. Not far away, tippling vagrant Martin Lorson witnesses a murder: A man in a felt hat strangles a woman to death. Martin finds, near the body of the opulently dressed victim, an unusual black pendant that he pockets. Hoping to avoid claims of dereliction and also help his sad friend Martin if he can, watchman Alfred Gamache asks for help from Victor, who spends countless hours in his bookshop discussing local events with his assistant, Joseph, aka Jojo. Before Victor can gain any traction in the case of the murdered Louise Fontaine, Baron Edmond de La Gournay and famous couturier Richard Gaétan, both members of the unconventional Black Unicorn Society, are also found murdered under similar circumstances. Could they be connected to the dead Louise?
Though Izner's sixth (In the Shadow of Paris, 2011, etc.) rambles quite a bit, the digressions provide a delightfully frothy wide-angle portrait of colorful belle-epoque characters and settings.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-312-66217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Compelling characters and a sexy, angst-filled bunch of mysteries add up to a winning series debut.
After ending the long-running Grim Reaper series (Summoned to Thirteenth Grave, 2019, etc.), Jones introduces a sexy, funny, tough new heroine in Sunshine Vicram, the police chief of Del Sol, New Mexico.
Sun fled her hometown years before after the horrifying experience of being kidnapped when she was 17—an experience she doesn’t talk about, though it’s never out of her mind. After becoming a police officer, she worked most recently only half an hour away in Santa Fe before her parents nominated her for chief without telling her. Now that she and her 14-year-old daughter, Auri, have settled into a cottage in her parents’ backyard, she lands a case that brings back all her worst fears and cracks open suppressed memories. Auri’s first day at school is blighted by mean girls and rumors that identify her as a police snitch. The best part of her day is meeting heart-stopping Cruz De los Santos, a talented poet who’s the coolest guy in school. Del Sol has a reputation as a place where weird things happen, but the toughest ordeal for Sun is seeing the man she’s loved forever. Levi Ravinder, owner of Dark River Shine distillery, is the successful member of a dysfunctional, crime-ridden family. At first he responds to her coolly, but the atmosphere between them is combustible. Then Marianna St. Aubin literally crashes into the police station to report the kidnapping of her daughter, Sybil. For years Sybil told her parents about dreams that she’d be taken and killed before her 15th birthday, but they never believed her. A desperate hunt for Sybil and Levi’s nephew, Jimmy, who has autism and is also missing, reveals the long-dead body of Levi’s uncle and the shack Sun suddenly realizes she was kept in after her abduction. Both Sun and Auri must fight to overcome the dangerous secrets that spring up from nowhere.
Compelling characters and a sexy, angst-filled bunch of mysteries add up to a winning series debut.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-14944-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Middling for this standout series but guaranteed to please anyone who thinks the cops sometimes get it wrong.
A cold case pulls Harry Bosch back from retirement and into another eventful partnership with Detective Renée Ballard of the LAPD.
The widow of Bosch’s retired mentor, Detective John Jack Thompson, has a present for Bosch, and it’s a doozy: the murder book for the unsolved killing of ex-con John Hilton, shot to death in his car one night nearly 20 years ago, which Thompson swiped from the archives without authorization or explanation. Bosch, who wonders why Thompson lifted the murder book if he didn’t intend to work the case, is eager to take a crack at it himself, but he needs the resources that only an active partner can provide. But Ballard, settled into the routine of the midnight shift after her exile from Robbery-Homicide (Dark Sacred Night, 2018), has just started working her own case, the arson that killed Eddie, a homeless man, inside his tent. As if that’s not enough criminal activity, Bosch’s half brother, Lincoln lawyer Mickey Haller, faces the apparently hopeless defense of Jeffrey Herstadt, who not only left his DNA under the fingernail of Walter Montgomery, the Superior Court judge he’s accused of killing, but also obligingly confessed to the murder. Working sometimes in tandem, more often separately, and sometimes actively against the cops who naturally bridle at the suggestion that any of their own theories or arrests might be flawed, Ballard and Bosch slog through the usual dead ends and fruitless rounds of questioning to link two murders separated by many years to a single hired killer. The most mysterious question of all—why did John Jack Thompson steal that murder book in the first place?—is answered suddenly, casually, and surprisingly.
Middling for this standout series but guaranteed to please anyone who thinks the cops sometimes get it wrong.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-48561-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
