Skillfully handled entertainment, with a bonus in reader-friendly lessons in how to launder money, spike a drink and read a...
A mayhem-on-the-mesa mystery by mega-selling genre author Lowell (The Color of Death, 2004, etc.).
Carly May is a genealogist who can read a mitochondrial DNA sequencing chart as readily as she can sort out a family tree. Dan Duran is a lone ranger type, a New Mexico native skilled at following money as it flows in and out of the pockets of crooks and bad guys. (He’s also, it turns out, skilled at giving lonely genealogists what no man has ever done before.) The two find themselves together in the wake, literally, of a senator and local grandee who has, it seems, fathered half of northern New Mexico’s population, and not always with the legal consent of the mother. The senator’s widow knows a story or two, as does her sister, who didn’t much approve of the old man—among whose offspring are some surprises, as well as an apple-of-the-eye grandson (“The Senator kept seeing himself in you, smiling at the thought of you drinking and screwing your way through life”) and a presumptive heir now ready to trade governorship of the state up to the presidency. This dysfunctional extended family is only dimly aware that it’s family, but it’s keenly aware of the Chinatown-like secrets that are not for outsiders to know, and Carly is an outsider extraordinaire in clannish Taos. At first it’s a little vandalism of her SUV office-on-wheels, “shreds and chunks of tread . . . scattered around like pieces of black flesh.” Then it’s a recorded greeting-card warning her to split. Then it’s a bullet whistling in her direction. Who would go to such lengths, and to protect what information? Therein hangs Lowell’s tale, full of mostly accurate local color and never quite predictable. Suffice it to say that readers convinced that the only way to look at a politician is down aren’t going to have their minds changed here.
Skillfully handled entertainment, with a bonus in reader-friendly lessons in how to launder money, spike a drink and read a genomics report.Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-050415-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2005
While Liv’s more pedestrian story is less romantic than Sophie’s and far less nuanced, Moyes is a born storyteller who makes...
The newest novel by Moyes (Me Before You, 2012, etc.) shares its title with a fictional painting that serves as catalyst in linking two love stories, one set in occupied France during World War I, the other in 21st-century London.
In a French village in 1916, Sophie is helping the family while her husband, Édouard, an artist who studied with Matisse, is off fighting. Sophie’s pluck in standing up to the new German kommandant in the village draws his interest. An art lover, he also notices Édouard's portrait of Sophie, which captures her essence (and the kommandant's adoration). Arranging to dine regularly at Sophie’s inn with his men, he begins a cat-and-mouse courtship. She resists. But learning that Édouard is being held in a particularly harsh “reprisal” camp, she must decide what she will sacrifice for Édouard’s freedom. The rich portrayals of Sophie, her family and neighbors hauntingly capture wartime’s gray morality. Cut to 2006 and a different moral puzzle. Thirty-two-year-old widow Liv has been struggling financially and emotionally since her husband David’s sudden death. She meets Paul in a bar after her purse is stolen. The divorced father is the first man she’s been drawn to since she was widowed. They spend a glorious night together, but after noticing Édouard's portrait of Sophie on Liv’s wall, he rushes away with no explanation. In fact, Paul is as smitten as Liv, but his career is finding and returning stolen art to the rightful owners. Usually the artwork was confiscated by Germans during World War II, not WWI, but Édouard's descendants recently hired him to find this very painting. Liv is not about to part with it; David bought it on their honeymoon because the portrait reminded him of Liv. In love, Liv and Paul soon find themselves on opposite sides of a legal battle.
While Liv’s more pedestrian story is less romantic than Sophie’s and far less nuanced, Moyes is a born storyteller who makes it impossible not to care about her heroines.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-02661-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Like a popcorn action flick: fun but lacking in substance.
Two wolf shifters must catch a criminal in the midst of hazardous winter weather: Action, adventure, and romance kick off a new series by Spear (Falling for the Cougar, 2019, etc.).
Private Investigator Nicole Grayson has an edge that some of her colleagues don’t. She’s a gray wolf shifter, and her heightened sense of smell makes for excellent tracking abilities. When her latest assignment, investigating a fraudulent life insurance claim, leads her to an isolated ski lodge inhabited by a group of shifter brothers, Nicole realizes that this particular mission is different. Blake Wolff has finally found peace and quiet, as he and his brothers have turned their land into a sanctuary for wolf shifters like themselves. When Nicole turns up at the lodge, sniffing around and looking for answers, Blake volunteers to help. The sooner she wraps up her investigation, the sooner Blake can return to maintaining the calm community the Wolff siblings have built. The suspense never fully delivers despite the setup of dangerous situations and the characters’ ability to shift into wolves. Of course, the bad guys get caught and the good guys prevail, but the stakes never seem terribly high. With corny, on-the-nose details such as having Wolff and Grayson as surnames for gray wolf shifters, it's hard to tell if Spear is in on the joke or if some things sounded better in theory than reality. The brightest spot here, as in most of Spears’ books, is her dedication to writing strong heroines with interesting professions, and Nicole fits perfectly into that box. She’s capable, competent, and a force to be reckoned with in a difficult situation. Blake is happy to let her take the lead without any egos getting in the way, which is something all readers will appreciate.
Like a popcorn action flick: fun but lacking in substance.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9775-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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