A buoyant, commendable mystery that piles on red herrings with ferocity and glee.
In this debut thriller, a woman decides to look into the murders of fellow real estate brokers when it seems that someone’s setting her up as a patsy.
Dana Black is one of some 2,000 Realtors in Rock Canyon. It’s a profession that doesn’t get much respect from the townspeople, particularly considering an agent’s underhanded stunt to garner public sympathy and the unexplained disappearance of a “problem client.” So when a couple of agents turn up murdered, cops aren’t very interested. Dana, however, is worried about her lack of alibis. Suffering from intermittent blackouts, she can’t account for her whereabouts during the first murder. BDSM play partner, Dare, is her alibi for the second homicide, but he has reason to keep mum about their encounters. Dana finds an ally in private eye Aidan Cummings, who asks her to join him in questioning locals because they’ll likely be more responsive to a familiar face. It isn’t long before Cummings is more appealing than Dare, despite the detective’s conventional sex life making him boring vanilla. As the murderer continues targeting Realtors, it’s clear a frame-up is in the works (for example, a car that looks suspiciously like Dana’s). With a sordid past and her estrangement from hateful, sickly mom, Cassandra Beckett, and older, top-selling broker sister, Melanie, Dana has incentive to track down a killer. Though the murder mystery’s initially muted, focusing on Dana’s sexual escapades with Dare, Barr’s story gradually becomes a dense, twist-laden excursion. Dana’s history, for one, is rife with trauma—Dad died on her 6th birthday—and curious motives later come to light, including Cassandra wanting no association with her younger daughter. Dana’s not quite as kinky as she asserts, specifically indexing her various limits. Nevertheless, the woman torn between sexually enticing Dare and charming Cummings faces a dishy dilemma. And despite her worries, Dana’s nonexistent alibis aren’t much of an issue; she’s actively involved in the investigation, spearheaded by Cummings (per orders from the short-on-manpower captain), who believes in her innocence. But she’s unequivocally in danger by the end, and the spiraling final act, culminating with the killer’s staggering reveal, is an exhilarating ride.
A buoyant, commendable mystery that piles on red herrings with ferocity and glee.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9977118-1-3
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Punctuated Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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