A satisfying mystery that leaves one hoping for another installment in the story of Amber Torley.
The disappearance of two young girls is at the heart of Redhead’s (Dead Man Calling, 2012) engaging new mystery.
High school student Melissa Gardner disappeared without a trace from her seemingly happy, middle-class family. There are no leads to follow, despite a dedicated effort by the local police department. Rebellious Amber Torley is intrigued and mildly concerned, but it’s not until her own best friend goes missing that she launches herself into the investigation. Amber, a troubled yet smart young woman, lives in an abusive household with her parents and younger sister. She turns to crime, drugs and sex in an attempt to earn money and escape from her violent father and mousy mother and sister. While she hates her home, she’s one misstep away from being kicked out of the house and ending up on the streets, in prison or dead. School is no better than home. Amber is on the verge of being expelled, she refuses to apply herself in the classroom, and she’s often the ringleader behind various acts of theft and vandalism. However, the mysterious disappearances change Amber’s life in ways she could never have anticipated. The solid presence and trust of handsome inspector Robert Lambert provide Amber with much-needed emotional support, pushing her to step toward a brighter future. The investigation not only turns up the truth behind the disappearances, but it reveals monumental secrets about Amber’s past that provide her with an opportunity to escape and start again. The transition from truant to success story isn’t easy, and Amber struggles to find her place in the world. Redhead’s mystery serves as a wonderful modern and gritty fairy tale. Amber’s thoughts and emotions are clearly drawn, rendering her outwardly ridiculous decisions almost understandable. The supporting cast of characters is strong and believable, though none truly share Amber’s spotlight. The author keeps the narrative moving, tying up the loose ends while resisting the urge to provide a typical “fairy tale” love story at its conclusion.
A satisfying mystery that leaves one hoping for another installment in the story of Amber Torley.Pub Date: June 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477680445
Page Count: 350
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
