by Colin Cotterill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 14, 2018
Cotterill’s long-running series, now on its 13th installment, runs on the chemistry of his quirky comic characters, who once...
A mysterious skeleton, a controversial film project, local government corruption…who else could solve this puzzle but curmudgeonly coroner Dr. Siri?
Fresh from his misadventures at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (The Rat Catchers Olympics, 2017, etc.), elderly instigator Dr. Siri Paiboun has an ambitious new project: an epic film based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He’s even managed to sneak a $15,000 camera back into repressive Laos. Chief Inspector Phosy of the Vientiane police thinks Siri has been smuggling in weapons but must proceed delicately, both because he’s only recently been promoted and because his wife, the acerbic and domineering Nurse Dtui, was Dr. Siri’s assistant during his tenure as the country’s coroner. Phosy instead confronts Siri’s pampered, high-maintenance wife, Madam Daeng, at her noodle shop. Dtui now works as a nursing instructor, but her experience and expertise are needed when a female skeleton is discovered at the base of the Anusawari Victory Arch, an event foreshadowed in the creepy opening chapter. Siri’s film project is sidelined while he assembles his “group of crime fighters” to unravel the mystery. Their probe takes them by turns to the airport, a nest of animal oppressors, and the chambers of a corrupt judge. Meantime, the film project crawls drolly along.
Cotterill’s long-running series, now on its 13th installment, runs on the chemistry of his quirky comic characters, who once again deliver delightfully. Tart chapter titles like “Enough Perverts to Keep Us All Busy” add another layer of ironic humor.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61695-940-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Share your opinion of this book
More by Colin Cotterill
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by David Baldacci ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 2, 1997
Irritatingly trite woman-in-periler from lawyer-turned-novelist Baldacci. Moving away from the White House and the white-shoe Washington law firms of his previous bestsellers (Absolute Power, 1996; Total Control, 1997), Baldacci comes up with LuAnn Tyler, a spunky, impossibly beautiful, white-trash truck stop waitress with a no-good husband and a terminally cute infant daughter in tow. Some months after the birth of Lisa, LuAnn gets a phone call summoning her to a make-shift office in an unrented storefront of the local shopping mall. There, she gets a Faustian offer from a Mr. Jackson, a monomaniacal, cross-dressing manipulator who apparently knows the winning numbers in the national lottery before the numbers are drawn. It seems that LuAnn fits the media profile of what a lottery winner should be—poor, undereducated but proud—and if she's willing to buy the right ticket at the right time and transfer most of her winnings to Jackson, she'll be able to retire in luxury. Jackson fails to inform her, however, that if she refuses his offer, he'll have her killed. Before that can happen, as luck would have it, LuAnn barely escapes death when one of husband Duane's drug deals goes bad. She hops on a first-class Amtrak sleeper to Manhattan with a hired executioner in pursuit. But executioner Charlie, one of Jackson's paid handlers, can't help but hear wedding bells when he sees LuAnn cooing with her daughter. Alas, a winning $100- million lottery drawing complicates things. Jackson spirits LuAnn and Lisa away to Sweden, with Charlie in pursuit. Never fear. Not only will LuAnn escape a series of increasingly violent predicaments, but she'll also outwit Jackson, pay an enormous tax bill to the IRS, and have enough left over to honeymoon in Switzerland. Too preposterous to work as feminine wish-fulfillment, too formulaic to be suspenseful. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection)
Pub Date: Dec. 2, 1997
ISBN: 0-446-52259-7
Page Count: 528
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1997
Share your opinion of this book
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.