Riddled with implausible situations and light on the research, this plodding tale is for die-hard Baldacci fans only.
Amos Decker, Baldacci’s hulking former NFL player and one-time police investigator, is back for a case involving death row inmates, a brutal double murder, and a shattered sports career.
When readers first met Amos Decker, he was a socially inept giant mired in the past; his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law were brutally murdered in Decker’s own home. Living out of a tiny motel room and working as a private investigator, Decker finally solved their murders and helped the FBI put a relentless killer to bed. Now, Decker has reported for duty at a special FBI unit to work cold cases. Commanded by Special Agent Ross Bogart, the unit includes journalist Alexandra Jamison, clinical psychologist Lisa Davenport, and the sullen Todd Milligan, an FBI field agent. The team reports for their first day of duty and almost immediately travels from Quantico to Texas to work the case of a former NFL shoo-in, Melvin Mars, who—on the brink of the pro football draft—was arrested, charged, and convicted of killing his parents. But on the eve of Mars’ execution, another man in another state, also on death row, confesses to killing the pair. Upon their arrival in Texas, the team from Quantico finds the case against Mars makes less and less sense. When readers first met Decker, he was maladjusted and brilliant, his NFL career cut short by a vicious hit that altered his life and left him with perfect recall. And it was his incredible memory that solved his cases. This new, improved, vanilla Decker is less interesting than the damaged hero Baldacci first introduced. And while the case starts out with plenty of potential, Decker’s incredible memory really isn’t flexed much here, so it’s ultimately solved by ordinary detective work.
Riddled with implausible situations and light on the research, this plodding tale is for die-hard Baldacci fans only.Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4555-8645-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
Proceed at your own risk.
Pioneering pathologist Kay Scarpetta (Trace, 2004, etc.) goes up against a wraithlike killer whose self-appointed mission is to “relieve others of their suffering.”
Practice, practice, practice. If only 16-year-old South Carolina tennis phenom Drew Martin had stuck to the court instead of going off to Rome to party, her tortured corpse wouldn’t be baffling the Italian authorities, headed inexplicably by medico legale Capt. Ottorino Poma, and the International Investigative Response team, which includes both Scarpetta and her lover, forensic psychologist Benton Wesley. But the young woman’s murder and the gruesome forensic riddles it poses are something of a sideshow to the main event: the obligatory maundering of the continuing cast. Wesley still won’t leave Boston for the woman he tepidly insists he loves. Scarpetta’s niece, computer whiz Lucy Farinelli, continues to be jealously protective of her aunt. Scarpetta’s investigator, Pete Marino, is so besotted by the trailer-trash pickup who’s pushing his buttons that he does some terrible things. And Scarpetta herself is threatened by every misfit in the known universe, from a disgruntled mortician to oracular TV shrink Marilyn Self. Cornwell’s trademark forensics have long since been matched by Karin Slaughter and CSI. What’s most distinctive about this venerable franchise is the kitchen-sink plotting; the soap-opera melodrama that prevents any given volume from coming to a satisfying end; and the emphasis on titanic battles between Scarpetta and a series of Antichrists.
Proceed at your own risk.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-15393-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lacking in both thrills and chills.
Another homage to classic horror from a bestselling author.
Sager’s debut novel, Final Girls (2017), wasn’t so much a horror novel as a commentary about horror movies in novel form. It was clever but also very well-crafted. The author tried to do something similar with The Last Time I Lied (2018), with significantly less satisfying results. This new novel is another attempt to make the model work. Whether or not it does depends on how invested one is in formula for the sake of formula. Jules Larsen is getting over a breakup and the loss of her job when she finds a gig that seems too good to be true: The Bartholomew, a storied Manhattan building, wants to pay her thousands of dollars to simply occupy a vacant—and luxurious—apartment. Jules soon gets the feeling that all is not as it seems at the Bartholomew, which is, of course, a perfect setup for some psychological suspense, but the problem is that there is little in the way of narrative tension because Jules’ situation is so obviously not right from the very beginning. While interviewing for the job, she's asked about her health history. She's informed that she is not allowed to have guests in the apartment. She's warned that she must not interact with or talk to anyone else about the building’s wealthy and famous inhabitants. And she learns that she will be paid under the table. While this might not be enough to deter someone who is broke and desperate, it does mean that Jules should be a bit more concerned than she is when the really scary stuff starts happening. It’s possible to read this as a parody of the absurdly intrepid horror heroine, but, even as that, it’s not a particularly entertaining parody. Jules’ best friend makes a reference to American Horror Story, which feels less like a postmodern nod than a reminder that there are other, better examples of the genre that one could be enjoying instead.
Lacking in both thrills and chills.Pub Date: July 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4514-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
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