A case of dognapping distracts public defender Gordy Seegerman from rehearsals as he again readies himself and his band of fellow worshippers to meet the man of their dreams, Barry Manilow.
San Francisco Bay Area lawyer/musician Seegerman, the big-hearted hero of Misdemeanor Man (2004), still unmarried, still devoted to the artistry of Bette Midler’s onetime pianist, is again preparing his band for a possible meeting with his idol in Vegas. But there are complications. Maeve O’Connell, the band’s bad-tempered, middle-aged, Irish, lesbian vocalist is laid up in the last weeks of a surprise pregnancy, forcing Gordy to enlist the services of ex-girlfriend Silvie, the next best interpreter of Manilow ballads in Santa Rita. He’s still got a thing for her, but it’s unrequited and she’s married. And Seegerman still hasn’t gotten tested for the early onset Alzheimer’s that is erasing his father’s personality. The work intruding on the world of music is the misdemeanor mischief of Marcus Manners, superstar quarterback of the local public high school who has been charged with the theft of the canine mascot belonging to archrival Saint Illuminatus, enraging powerful alumni—including the crooked cop who found the missing dog behind Marcus’s apartment and the crabby judge who will try the case. And then the middle-aged heiress from whose estate the dog was stolen and who may have had a thing for Marcus (although Maeve swears she’s gay) takes three bullets, and Marcus, who was seen with her and who has blood on his sneakers, is the lead suspect in her murder. Gordy needs considerable help from the talented boys in his band to sort out clues that lead back to a big drug deal in the ’80s and involve Marcus’s foster father, a prominent black politician in a town that is ready to riot over the charges against their young sports hero.
Overlong, and the constant references to Manilow songs will result in persistent, uninvited theme music for readers of a certain age. Still, Seegerman remains likable.Pub Date: May 9, 2005
ISBN: 1-58234-506-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2005
Categories: GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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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. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Categories: GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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