Although Ray’s wild adventures seem to get less stressful as they go along, McBain already has voice and tone well in hand...
This pulpy 1952 first novel by the future creator of the 87th Precinct (Fiddlers, 2005, etc.) traces three nightmare days in the life of an addict on the run.
Fallen piano player Ray Stone, who’ll do anything for a fix, hooks up with Eileen Chalmers, who offers him a night of sex and heroin and shows him 16 more ounces of uncut product. When he wakes up after the debauchery, Eileen is dead in his bed, shot twice in the belly, and the drugs are gone. Ray’s attempts to promote his next fix from his father and his former girlfriend, Jeannie, both of whom know all about his habit, are of limited success, and his regular dealer naturally refuses to extend credit. So Ray decides to go looking not for more heroin but for Eileen’s killer. From this foundational implausibility flow many others. Everyone Ray talks to, from Eileen’s husband, bandleader Dale Kramer, to his new sweetie, exotic dancer Rusty O’Donnell, to Scat Lewis, frontman of the combo she sang with, to Barbara Cole, the singer who switched gigs with Eileen, is improbably forthcoming—Babs even takes him to bed—and when the inevitable heavies looking for that pound of H grab Ray, intent on making him talk, he gets away from them and keeps asking questions. Ray’s picture is on the front page of every newspaper in New York, but no one recognizes him, and the police remain a step or two behind right up to the denouement.
Although Ray’s wild adventures seem to get less stressful as they go along, McBain already has voice and tone well in hand in this treasurable blast from the past, which looks forward in fascinating ways to the first part of Candyland (2001). Disgraced private eye Matt Cordell headlines a bonus story focusing on another hopeless addict.Pub Date: July 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-78116-606-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Gardner (The Killing Hour, 2003, etc.) tends to overplot, but as always the strength of her characters keeps the pages...
A straight-arrow cop gets entangled with a crooked lady and—surprise!—rues the day.
Bobby Dodge likes his job as a sniper with the Massachusetts State Police Special Tactics squad, a SWAT unit. He likes his girlfriend Susan, a beautiful and talented musician. In short, Bobby likes his life until the night Catherine Gagnon drops into it. What appears at first not much more than a run-of-the-mill domestic disturbance—husband screaming at cowering wife—suddenly escalates when the screaming husband has a gun and the cowering wife is wrapped protectively around a terrified child. There’s no time for anything but trained instinct when Bobby, watching through the scope of his rifle, sees Jimmy Gagnon’s finger tightening on the trigger. It’s a righteous shot, an act that saved the lives of Catherine and her young son, Bobby insists. Most agree at first. In the days that follow, however, minds change. Catherine, it seems, has a past; she also has the kind of beauty that unsettles as readily as it attracts. She’s a dangerous woman, Bobby is warned. Before long, he realizes that as a manipulator she can take her place with the best of history’s dark ladies. And that maybe the shooting wasn’t so righteous after all.
Gardner (The Killing Hour, 2003, etc.) tends to overplot, but as always the strength of her characters keeps the pages turning.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-553-80253-4
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2004
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.
A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.
Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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