by Douglas Light ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2018
This sinuous narrative works neatly, both as a gripping novel and a solid meditation on identity.
A young man who survived a tragic accident becomes part of a mysterious international operation where violence and subterfuge abound.
The narrator of this tautly plotted novel doesn’t reveal his name, but he travels through a world in which names, aliases, and hidden identities all have tremendous power. Initially, the structure of the book seems fragmented, but slowly different threads coalesce, revealing a globe-trotting narrative in which betrayals, mysteries, and revelations are interwoven. After the death of his family, the narrator abandons his plans for college and instead opts to be adrift in the world, which eventually leads him to a homeless shelter in Seattle, where he comes into the orbit of a mysterious man named Ray-Ray. From there, he embarks on a career doing a series of nebulous deliveries and drop-offs, which become increasingly global in scope even as the level of danger for these missions increases. That a copy of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock plays a major role in the plot—along with George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia and Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon—suggests that Light (Blood Stories, 2015, etc.) is quite aware of his literary forebears. That counts for a lot, as does the way the various plot threads converge organically. The way the novel encompasses both a grittily realistic tale of coming of age in the Midwest and a globe-trotting espionage thriller is occasionally jarring, but the invocation of unexpected real-world events—a reference to 1998’s Operation Desert Fox factors into one character’s history—helps create a narrative equilibrium. And when one character opines that the nominally fast-paced life he lives “used to be thrilling. Now, it’s tedious,” it’s a fine way of finding balance between the two.
This sinuous narrative works neatly, both as a gripping novel and a solid meditation on identity.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-945572-66-1
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Vireo/Rare Bird Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
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
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by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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