Over the course of 31 outings, Egleton has proved that few can make reptilian bureaucratic intrigue as intriguing as he can.
They've kicked him upstairs, sure, but superagent Peter Ashton hasn't lost a step.
By no means is everyone in Britain's SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) an Ashton fan (One Man Running, 2002, etc.)—“loose cannon” is among the gentler detractions—but, come on, the man has saved Old Blighty from disaster more often than Henry V and Winston Churchill combined. So, belatedly and rather shamefacedly, they've given him a department: the Eastern European desk. As his boss, that “thruster” Victor Hazelwood, who knows how much of his Director Generalship is owed to Ashton’s performance, privately acknowledges, “he hadn't always done right by the younger man.” But almost before Ashton can get his chair warm, trouble and strife have the SIS family shaking and quaking. Blame it on that other stormy petrel, Jill Sheridan, who’s even more ambitious than Victor Hazelwood. Once on the fast track to becoming SIS’s first female Director General, she has recently stumbled, taken some vicious anti-collegial hits, endured some serious bureaucratic blindsiding. To rethink tactics—and lick wounds—she's opted for a bit of vacation time in the States in the hope of improved perspective. But once there, Jill, so often the exploiter, sees the tables turned: she's victimized and humiliated with embarrassing ease. Well and truly seduced—and drugged out of her mind—she awakes in a sleazy hotel room to find herself naked, in chains, the star of a porno film, and blackmailable to her eyeteeth. Ashton and Hazelwood huddle. No way any of this can have a thing to do with the Eastern European desk, Ashton insists. Maybe not, Hazelwood admits, but the situation’s a mess—and messes are always going to be Ashton’s business.
Over the course of 31 outings, Egleton has proved that few can make reptilian bureaucratic intrigue as intriguing as he can.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-30943-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
Filled with surprising twists and turns, this whodunit in a sullen town is a page-turner.
A young woman’s body is found smoldering in the fire pits of Campbell’s Run, Pennsylvania, and small-town police chief Dove Carnahan is on the case.
O’Dell (One of Us, 2014, etc.) returns with a captivating mystery. Who hated Camio Truly enough to not only bash her head in with a blunt object, but also ditch her body in a fiery grave? As Dove investigates, she’s assisted by Nolan, a gruff detective with the State Criminal Investigations Division and her sometime lover. Practically nobody lives in Campbell’s Run anymore, not since a sinkhole (which had been lurking underground after a mine fire) opened, sucking most of the town into its depths. Since then, Campbell’s Run has declined, as people with the means moved away to nearby Buchanan, so whoever dumped Camio’s body there must be a local. Even before Camio’s murder, the Truly family had had more than its share of troubles, including incarcerated sons and deaths by mayhem, but Dove is shocked at the apathy shown by Camio’s mother, the obese, television-addicted Shawna. Camio’s sister, Jessyca, a single mother, shows far more concern, although she makes little effort to hide her dislike of her younger, more ambitious sister. Yet under the thumb of matriarch Miranda Truly, Camio’s family clams up. Solving the case is further complicated now that Lucky Dombosky has been released from jail after serving 35 years for murdering Dove’s mother. Lucky claims Dove and her sister, Neely, framed him. Meanwhile Dove’s brother, Champ, has shown up, after his own long absence, with a precocious son in tow. O’Dell spins a fine tale, ratcheting up tension with every turn of the screw in Dove’s life and every downward spiral in the Truly family history.
Filled with surprising twists and turns, this whodunit in a sullen town is a page-turner.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5595-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
Not as tightly clued as a Christie original, this initial First Edition entry still gives readers what they came for.
A curator of a collection of rare mysteries solves a puzzle of her own.
A degree in 19th-century literature doesn’t open many doors, Hayley Burke discovers, and those that do open seldom lead to treasure troves. So when her stint as assistant to the assistant curator of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath doesn’t quite cover expenses, Hayley thinks herself lucky to be offered the position of curator of The First Edition Society. Founded by the late Lady Georgiana Fowling as a repository for her vast collection of mystery novels, the society hasn’t quite decided whether it’s a library, a social club, or an educational institution. What it clearly is is Hayley's home, since the job offers both Hayley and the society’s secretary, Glynis Woolgar, apartments in Middlebank House, the spacious mansion that houses the late Lady Fowling’s collection. In an effort to expand the society’s profile, Hayley also opens Middlebank House to the weekly meetings of a local writers’ group that specializes in mystery fan fiction. But the morning after a particularly contentious session pitting writers of Agatha Christie vampire mashups against creators of Agatha Christie zombie pastiches, the corpse of Tristram Cummins is discovered in the library. Now Hayley’s job is on the line, as the tabloids move in and the board of directors suddenly finds the society’s profile a little too high. Even worse, Charles Henry Dill, Lady Fowling’s rapacious nephew, discovers that Hayley hasn’t read most of the authors featured in his aunt’s collection. Alarmed, Hayley gets down to work, and only a few novels later, Wingate (Midsummer Mayhem, 2019, etc.) shows her channeling Miss Marple accurately enough to give the police a run for their money in unmasking a killer.
Not as tightly clued as a Christie original, this initial First Edition entry still gives readers what they came for.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0410-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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