An intriguing, fast-paced combination of police procedural and thriller.
As in her series debut, Trust No One (2020), Webb presses the question of whether wealth and power can shield criminals from the consequences of their actions.
The strong working relationship between Birmingham, Alabama, police detectives Kerri Devlin and Luke Falco is tested when they catch the gang-style murders of two victims: Leonard Kurtz, the owner of the high-end tobacco and liquor store where the bodies were found, and Asher Walsh, the Harvard-educated son of wealthy parents based in Boston. Because Walsh recently became deputy district attorney in Birmingham, they assume he was the killer’s target. Kerri’s immediately distracted by the involvement of her 14-year-old daughter, Tori, in the death of a fellow student who fell or was pushed down the stairs, an incident witnessed by Tori, her best friend, Sarah, and Alice Cortez, a new student from Mexico. In the meantime, Falco learns that Walsh made a call to Sadie Cross, a former police detective whose kidnapping while she was undercover in the Osorio Mexican cartel left her with serious physical injuries and big holes in her memory. To Kerri and Falco’s fury, Sadie’s father, coldhearted DEA agent Mason Cross, takes over the case. Sadie, now a private investigator, admits to helping Walsh, who wanted to take down the Osorio cartel and hoped Sadie could help. For Kerri, helping her traumatized daughter has to come first, especially after a whispering campaign started by Alice accuses Tori of pushing her bullying classmate. The gradual return of Sadie’s memory reveals hideous details of her captivity, dangerous secrets, and surprising connections between the two cases.
An intriguing, fast-paced combination of police procedural and thriller.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9177-0
Page Count: 381
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Feeney improves on her debut with a taut suspense plot, many gleeful twists and turns, and suspects galore.
A news presenter and a police detective are brought together by murders in the British village where they both grew up.
There is precious little that can be revealed about the plot of Feeney’s third novel without spoilers, as the author has woven surprises and plot twists and suspicious linkages into nearly every one of her brief, first-person chapters, written in three alternating narrative voices. “Hers” is Anna Andrews, a wannabe anchor on a BBC news program whose lucky break comes when the body of one of her school friends is found brutally murdered in their hometown, a woodsy little spot called Blackdown. “His” is DCI Jack Harper, head of the Major Crime Team in Blackdown, where major crimes were rather few until now. The third is unnamed but clearly the killer’s. Happily, none of the three is an unreliable narrator—good thing because plenty of people are sick of that—but none is exactly 100% forthcoming either. Which only makes sense, because you can't have reveals without secrets. In a small town like Blackdown, everybody knows everybody, so it’s not too surprising that Anna and Jack have a tragic past or that each has connections to all the victims and suspects while not being totally free from suspicion themselves. Who is that sneaky third narrator? On the way to figuring that out, expect high school mean girls, teen lesbian action, mutilated corpses, nasty things happening to kittens, and—as seems de rigueur in British thrillers—plenty of drinking and wisecracks, sometimes in tandem. “Sadly, my sister has the same taste in wine as she does in men; too cheap, too young, and headache-inducing.”
Feeney improves on her debut with a taut suspense plot, many gleeful twists and turns, and suspects galore.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26608-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK TO SCREEN
A meager mystery, but it’s always worthwhile catching up on the interactions between Nora and her friends.
A bookstore owner and her pals have more than one mystery to solve.
Nora Pennington is the owner of Miracle Books in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, where she's surrounded by a group of good friends who call themselves the Secret, Book, and Scone Society: Hester Winthrop, a baker; Estella Sadler, a salon owner; and June Dixon, a hotel guest manager. And ever since a fire at her home, Nora’s been living with her partner, Sheriff Grant McCabe. Now she’s thrilled to be hosting her first-ever author evening at Miracle Books. Cozy mystery author Allie Kennedy is promoting her new book, The Dry Bar Murders, and Nora and her staff and friends have their hands full getting ready for that event as well as an upcoming Halloween Fun and Fright Night, which will include activities for kids as well as a demonstration by psychic medium Lara Luz. McCabe, for his part, is trying to catch someone dumping hazardous waste all over town. Nora’s biggest disagreement with McCabe is over his deputy, K9 handler Paula Hollowell, who goes out of her way to be nasty to Nora and her friends. The day of the Halloween event, Lara arrives with her boyfriend, Enzo Russo, and a bad cold. Nora is surprised when Hollowell arrives and even more so when Allie Kennedy shows up, glaring at Hollowell. The psychic readings start well enough, but suddenly Lara turns pale, gasps for air, and dies despite Hollowell’s CPR attempts. A frantic Enzo shoves Nora, giving her a concussion. Lara evidently died from a bad reaction to Narcan—it turns out she had a heart condition that didn't interact well with the drug—and the investigation shows that she’d angered many people by accepting valuable pieces of jewelry that had belonged to the dead, which Enzo sold in his pawn shop.
A meager mystery, but it’s always worthwhile catching up on the interactions between Nora and her friends.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781496743824
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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