A routine suspenser in which New York Daily News columnist Hamill pits his superhero against greed, corruption, and various other forces of evil. They never had a chance, those forces. Bobby Emmet—a cop when encountered in his debut (Three Quarters, 1998) and now a p.i.—is not only smart and tough, but he’s also a figure of extraordinary magnetism. One way or another, everybody is drawn to him. Bad guys, such as double-dealing tycoon Sam Kronk or Mafia-connected Moe Daggert, go out of their way to placate Bobby; three of New York’s most influential religious leaders try to hire him; and no woman can be in the same room with this “absolutely gorgeous” guy without wanting to seduce him. There’s the poor young (and sexy but pious) novitiate, for instance, who, tempted by Bobby, sends her vocation off on vacation. The case itself this time is about an elaborate scheme to bring legalized casino gambling to New York, a scheme that would net billions for anyone who makes it work. There are competing schemers, however, an array varied enough to wrong-foot even Bobby from time to time. Is their plotting and counterplotting related to a series of “purpose”murders? And are these murders somehow connected to a bizarre collection of human bones hidden in the home of one of the suspects? Bobby gets involved at the behest of sleazy Izzy Gleason, the scalawag lawyer who despite his ill-repute was once, for Bobby, a significant friend in court. In turn, Bobby enlists his brother, his daughter, his ex-wife and even her husband in a family effort to bring down “Number One,” the master criminal whose dark motivation seems to have rampaged way past simple greed. Bobby and company will eventually triumph, of course, and the dark undercurrent then gets a lengthy explanation” which some may even grasp. Excessive beatings, gratuitous beddings, and a Grand Guignol finish so absurd it’s funny.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02614-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
For once Deaver takes more effort to establish his hero’s bona fides than to give him a compelling and logical plot. The...
Veteran thrillmeister Deaver kicks off a new series about a man who collects rewards for a living.
Don’t call Colter Shaw a private eye, or a freelance investigator, or even a soldier of fortune, though his job includes elements of all three. The son of a cranky survivalist who died years ago amid suspicious circumstances, light-footed Shaw has returned close to his childhood home in the Bay Area in the hope of claiming the $10,000 Frank Mulliner is offering for the return of his daughter, Sophie, a college student who stormed out after the two of them fought over the FOR SALE sign outside his house and hasn’t been seen since. Shaw, who has the cool-headed but irritating habit of calculating the numerical odds on every possibility, thinks there’s a 60 percent chance that Sophie’s dead, “murdered by a serial killer, rapist or a gang wannabe.” Even though he accepts rewards only for rescues, not recoveries, he begins sorting through the scant evidence, quickly gets a hot lead about Sophie’s fate, and just as quickly realizes that Detective Dan Wiley, of the Joint Major Crimes Task Force, should have followed exactly the same clues days ago. (The rapidly shifting relations between Shaw and the law, in fact, are a particular high point here.) The day after Shaw’s search for Sophie comes to a violent end, he’s already, in the time-honored manner of Deaver’s bulldog heroes (The Burial Hour, 2017, etc.), on the trail of a second abduction, that of LGBT activist Henry Thompson. Readers who haven’t skipped the prologue will know that still a third kidnap victim, very pregnant Elizabeth Chabelle, will need to be rescued the following day. Thompson’s grief-stricken partner, Brian Byrd, tells Shaw, “It’s like this guy’s playing some goddamn sick game”—a remark Deaver’s fans will know to give just as much weight as Shaw himself does.
For once Deaver takes more effort to establish his hero’s bona fides than to give him a compelling and logical plot. The results are subpar for this initial installment but more encouraging for the promised series.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53594-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
A gritty, complicated heroine like Flora Dane deserves a better plot than this needlessly complicated story.
A kidnapping survivor–turned-vigilante tries to save another young woman while the police do everything they can to save them both.
Flora Dane might look unscathed but she’s permanently scarred from having been abducted while on spring break in Florida seven years earlier by Jacob Ness, a sadistic trucker who held her captive for 472 days, keeping her in a coffin for much of the time when he wasn't forcing her to have sex with him. Now back in Boston and schooled in self-defense, Flora is obsessed with kidnapped girls and the nature of survival, a topic she touches on a bit more than necessary in the many flashbacks to her time in captivity. Gardner (Crash & Burn, 2015, etc.) must walk a fine line in accurately evoking the horrors of Flora’s past ordeals without slipping into excessive descriptions of violence; she is not entirely successful. When Flora thwarts another kidnapping attempt by killing Devon Goulding, her would-be abductor, Gardner regular Sgt. Detective D.D. Warren’s interest is piqued even though she’s meant to be on restricted duty. Then Flora disappears for real, and Warren, along with Dr. Samuel Keynes, the FBI victim specialist from Flora's original kidnapping, fears it’s related to the kidnapping three months earlier of Stacey Summers, a case Flora followed closely. Gardner alternates between Warren’s investigation into Flora’s disappearance and Flora’s present-day hell at the hands of a new enemy, but the implausibility of the sheer number of kidnappings, among other things, strains credulity.
A gritty, complicated heroine like Flora Dane deserves a better plot than this needlessly complicated story.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-525-95457-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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