An often somber but potent crime drama.
As drug runner Nick considers a new business venture, a few curious deaths complicate matters in Schlegel’s (Odyssey Tale, 2014) thriller.
Nick Harmen and his cousin Ryan have been routinely making monthly trips from Junction, Iowa, to Pleasant City, Iowa, to drop off pounds of marijuana for cash. That changes when their drug wholesaler and childhood friend Joey Sheeks freezes to death in the November snow, apparently during an LSD trip. Nick’s other cousin, Zack, inherits Joey’s operation and wants to know if Nick wants in on his scheme to grow his own marijuana and eliminate the middleman. Nick isn’t fond of Zack, though; back in high school, he let Nick unjustly take the rap for cocaine possession and never told Nick’s family the truth. Meanwhile, crooked sheriff Rick Kensley keeps asking about someone Zack knows—a mysterious man named Eric Marquez. Nick is also at odds with his ex-girlfriend, Tori; they’re both living in the same house raising their beloved infant daughter, Hayden, while Nick’s mother, Patricia, is in the hospital. But Nick’s biggest worry is the fact that his drug business has become decidedly more hazardous due to the fact that someone is murdering Junction locals. Schlegel’s tale is dense with subplots and well-developed characters; for example, Nick and Joey’s pal Adam Craig, the son of a Junction deputy, is a West Virginia cop who’s tormented by both his time in Iraq and a recently bungled police raid. The characters all share a growing sense of urgency as their individual predicaments get progressively worse. But as stark as the narrative is, Schlegel isn’t afraid of adding some sentiment, however gruff, as when Nick’s brother praises Patricia by saying, “She’s a great goddamn mom.” It all steadily builds to an expected climax that doesn’t quite happen, but Schlegel does resolve some of the story’s mysteries while promising a second installment.
An often somber but potent crime drama.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5120-0445-8
Page Count: 252
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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