Static characters, pedestrian prose. Mahoney, a former NYPD captain, is, as always, at his best with the police procedural...
A shift to the wings for Det. First Grade Brian McKenna, leaving center stage to Det. First Grade Cisco Sanchez as Mahoney’s authoritative NYPD series gains a so-so fifth (Black and White, 1999, etc.).
The self-styled “best detective in the world,” Cisco, who on occasion is pleased to refer to himself in the heroic third person, clearly doesn’t hesitate to put his best foot forward. Among other useful attributes, he claims unmatched determination—though some of his superiors downgrade that quality to rampant bull-headedness—plus the kind of combustibility that’s calculated and unnerving, sometimes even to his friends. So when 14K, a notorious and far-flung 300-year-old band of Asian racketeers, kills the love of Cisco’s life, it figures to turn into a major bad-guy mistake. Never mind that Johnny Eng, 14K’s head dragon, is too smart to have deliberately awakened the sleeping dragon in Cisco. The point, for Cisco, is that Sue Hsu died violently at the hands of an Eng henchman, and that puts Johnny squarely on the spot. Working closely with his best friend McKenna and a team of dedicated detectives based in Toronto, Singapore, and Hong Kong, Cisco goes after the infamous gangster and his seemingly invincible triad. Methodically, Dragon Johnny is stripped of top-notch aides as Cisco and Co. jail a string of them for lengthy terms. But it’s only when they catch world-class hit-man King Kong Chen and force him to cough up closely held triadic trade secrets that 14K’s glitter pales to a flicker. Finally, Johnny and Cisco confront each other mano a mano, but by then, in a denouement drained of suspense, it’s super cop vs. toothless dragon and strictly no contest.
Static characters, pedestrian prose. Mahoney, a former NYPD captain, is, as always, at his best with the police procedural stuff, at his weakest with the novelizing.Pub Date: July 27, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26134-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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