A Reverend Mother, a police officer, a newspaper reporter, and a Jewish doctor extend their long, successful record of solving crimes in Cork in the 1920s.
Reverend Mother Aquinas has seen the worst of humanity, and nothing surprises her. But the Christmas double murder of an archdeacon of the Anglican Church of Ireland along with one of her most troublesome and downtrodden students makes her very angry indeed. Bishop Thompson comes himself to inform her that Dr. Scher, the police surgeon, thinks that both 7-year-old Enda O’Sullivan and the archdeacon were poisoned. Inspector Patrick Cashman and journalist and law student Eileen MacSwiney, two of the Reverend Mother’s most accomplished and beloved students involved in the case, rely on her wisdom to help solve a horrible crime with political implications. Apparently someone had tricked Enda into climbing into the cathedral, putting poison into a chalice, and then eating poisoned candy. Though the mischievous Enda had the voice of an angel, neither he nor his mother was popular in the Catholic community, and the Reverend Mother has to use all her influence to arrange a proper funeral. Patrick quickly learns that the archdeacon was disliked by a great many people for a great many reasons but wonders whether any of them are serious enough to kill for. Even in an Ireland free of England, members of the old guard still occupy many of the top positions. As a Catholic, Patrick relies on his Protestant assistant for insight. In the end, Dr. Scher’s knowledge of antique silver gives the Reverend Mother the answer.
Plenty of suspects dramatizing Ireland’s religious differences provide an excellent character-driven mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-72785-052-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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The Wyoming winter brings maverick game warden Joe Pickett poachers, murderers, spies, and some ferocious bad weather.
Seeking a wounded elk and a marauding wolf during a brutal snowstorm, Joe is amazed to discover a human corpse sticking halfway out of a metal outbuilding on the Double Diamond ranch. While he’s conscientiously photographing the crime scene, somebody starts shooting at him. Ranch foreman Clay Hutmacher refuses to say anything about the building’s purpose until he checks with billionaire ranch owner Michael Thompson; Gov. Colter Allen abruptly orders Joe off the case; and departing Twelve Sleep County Sheriff Scott Tibbs, the boss who’d do anything to avoid having Joe make waves, reports that there’s no body at the place he described. Meanwhile, Joe’s old friend Nate Romanowski, an outlaw falconer, is approached by ex–Army Ranger Jason Demo, who’s trying to attract anti-government malcontents to join the secessionist Sovereign Nation, and Joe realizes that his predatory mother-in-law, Missy, is neglecting her fifth or sixth husband, attorney Marcus Hand, who’s dying of pancreatic cancer, to cozy up to Allen, who plans to launch his campaign for reelection at the public library headed by Joe’s wife, Marybeth. What does the death of University of Wyoming engineering professor Zhang Wei, if that’s really who the dead man was, have to do with all of this malfeasance? Like a patient spider, Box plays out plotline after plotline, balancing his sympathies adroitly between anti-establishment libertarians who’ve had enough of the coastal elites and officers sworn to serve and protect their communities, before knotting them all together with a climactic revelation that for better or worse will leave you gasping.
One of the most successful of Box’s increasingly ambitious have-it-all thrillers.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780593331309
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Categories: SUSPENSE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | SUSPENSE | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lindsay Boxer faces a ton of trouble in the latest entry in Patterson and Paetro’s Women’s Murder Club series.
Senior crime reporter Cindy Thomas is writing a biography of Evan Burke, a notorious serial killer who sits in solitary confinement in San Quentin. She’s kidnapped by thugs wanting her to talk about her best friend, Lindsay Boxer, who’s an SFPD homicide detective and the story’s main character. San Francisco has a restrictive new gun law, and gun-totin’ folks everywhere have their boxer shorts in a twist. A national resistance movement has formed—Defenders of the Second—whose motto is “We will not comply.” They find it outrageous that the new law makes it illegal to own a gun that can kill 50 people with a single clip. Meanwhile, lots of bodies show up: A young girl disappears and is later found dead in a ditch, and ex-cops are found dead with their lips stapled shut and “You talk, you die” written on their foreheads. An inmate is found hanged in prison. And “a massive but unspecified load of military-style weaponry was en route from Mexico to the City by the Bay.” In a “frustrating, multipronged case,” there’s a harrowing shootout memorialized in a video showing “twenty-two of the scariest seconds” of Boxer’s life. She’s an appealing series hero with loving family and friends, but she may arrive at a crossroads where she has “to choose between my work and [my] baby girl.” The formulaic story has unmemorable writing, but it’s entertaining and well told. You probably won’t have to worry about the main characters, who have thus far survived 21 adventures. Except for the little girl, you can expect people to get what they deserve. It's relatively mild as crime novels go, but the women characters are serious, strong, and admirable.
Enjoyable storytelling by two masters of the craft.Pub Date: May 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-49937-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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