RAGDOLL

Name: RAGDOLL
Author: Daniel Cole
ISBN: 978-0-06-265395-6

by Daniel Cole ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 2017

Unnecessary blood and guts can only go so far to obscure the fact that this is a well-trod plot lacking in any real twists...

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A serial killer with a gruesome M.O. taunts an already damaged London detective.

If there’s one thing that takes the wind out of fictional serial killers’ sails it’s when they deliver exactly what they threaten. Especially when this involves a kill list, such as the one in Cole’s predictable debut, which earns high marks not for originality but for the number of clichés utilized. DS William Oliver Layton-Fawkes (no wonder he goes by Wolf) is only just back on the job after a demotion and a stint in a mental hospital following a violent blowup in court, where, after a verdict didn’t go his way, he beat the newly vindicated man nearly to death. Turns out that Naguib Khalid, whom Wolf was positive was “The Cremation Killer,” was bad news after all, as he went on to set a child on fire (the squeamish should not read this book; Cole seems to delight in being gruesome without the benefit of furthering any salient plot points). Wolf’s new case isn’t any less grim: in an empty apartment, a strange corpse is discovered with the singular distinction of being one body comprised of pieces of six victims sewn together like a psychotic poppet. Wolf and his former partner, DS Emily Baxter, in charge of training the team’s new guy—who seems to be the only one capable of real police work—determine that the chopped bits are all related to Wolf’s previous case. And the killer isn’t done: a list is delivered containing six names and six dates, presumably the so-called Ragdoll Killer’s next victims. And Wolf's is the last name on the list.

Unnecessary blood and guts can only go so far to obscure the fact that this is a well-trod plot lacking in any real twists or substantive character development.

Pub Date: April 4, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-06-265395-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

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Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
FIRE AND BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
COLD, COLD BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BONE CODE
by Kathy Reichs

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BADLANDS

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...

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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.