Nearly as violent as it is explicit—a pulpy thriller boasting a free-love message.
Multifaceted assassin Gideon returns to tangle with his enemies and lovers in Dickey’s highly sexed latest (Sleeping with Strangers, 2007, etc.).
There are worse things for a guy than being stuck in a fancy London hotel room with two beautiful women he hardly knows, but in spite of his Bond-like way with the ladies, contract killer Gideon has much on his mind. Everyone, it seems, wants to bed him or kill him. Sometimes both. Pursued by a broken-nosed rival hitman (Bruno) who followed him from America, he is also preoccupied with Arizona, the gorgeous con artist who broke his heart and might now be after his neck. She offers her help, but can he trust her? And then there is unfinished business with his mother Thelma, the prostitute living in England whose questionable parenting techniques he blames for turning him into the man he is today. Far friendlier is Lola Mack, the curvy wannabe actress he meets on his flight over, who turns to Gideon after her London-dwelling boyfriend spurns her, and the elegant Mrs. Jones, a mystery woman on the run from a bad marriage and family tragedy. Those two join him in his room and the trio exhaustively explores erotic possibilities, with Gideon trying to keep his job secret from his new playmates. Needless to say, it gets more complicated and bloodier, with our hero trying to save his skin, honor his obligations and protect those who suddenly seem to matter most to him. He is eventually forced into a showdown with Bruno that puts him on the trail of the party who placed the hit on him. With stops in Amsterdam and Detroit, Dickey’s latest meanders a bit in the earlier scenes, but it gains momentum as plot points introduced in the previous book come together.
Nearly as violent as it is explicit—a pulpy thriller boasting a free-love message.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-525-95038-7
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.
An Arizona accountant with a penchant for solving murders lands a fishy case.
Sophie "Phee" Kimball might lead a dull life if it weren’t for her mother, Harriet Plunkett, and Harriet’s neurotic Chiweenie, Streetman. As it is, Harriet lives near her daughter in Sun City West and has a wide circle of zany friends who’ve helped Phee solve several mysteries (Molded 4 Murder, 2019, etc.) while she’s been working for Williams Investigations along with her boyfriend, Marshall, a former police officer. While Phee’s visiting Harriet one day, Streetman dashes over to the neighbors’ barbecue grill and unearths a dead body under a tarp. As usual, the overwhelmed local police ask Williams Investigations to help—er, consult. Harriet’s main concern is getting costumes made for the reluctant Streetman, whom she’s entered in a series of contests starting with Halloween and progressing through Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, and St. Patrick’s Day. One of her friends is an accomplished seamstress who goes all out making gorgeous costumes that will beat an obnoxious lady who looks down on mutts. The dead man is identified as Cameron Tully, a seafood distributor, who was poisoned by the locally ubiquitous sago pine. At the first dog contest, Elaine Meschow has to be rushed to the hospital after she gets a dose of the same thing. The owner of a gourmet dog food company, Elaine is lucky enough to recover. After Streetman takes second place, Harriet’s team redoubles its efforts for the next contest while Phee and Marshall, who are moving into a new place together, continue to hunt for clues. A restaurant holdup and a scheme to use empty houses for hookups for high school kids add to the confusion.
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2455-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on...
After five adventures for Boston shamus Patrick Kenzie and his off-again lover Angela Gennaro (Prayers for Rain, 1999, etc.), Lehane tries his hand at a crossover novel that’s as dark as any of Patrick’s cases.
Even the 1975 prologue is bleak. Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus are playing, or fighting, outside Sean’s parents’ house in the Point neighborhood of East Buckingham when a car pulls up, one of the two men inside flashes a badge, and Sean and Jimmy’s friend Dave Boyle gets bundled inside, allegedly to be driven home to his mother for a scolding but actually to get kidnapped. Though Dave escapes after a few days, he never really outlives his ordeal, and 25 years later it’s Jimmy’s turn to join him in hell when his daughter Katie is shot and beaten to death in the wilds of Pen Park, and State Trooper Sean, just returned from suspension, gets assigned to the case. Sean knows that both Dave and Jimmy have been in more than their share of trouble in the past. And he’s got an especially close eye on Jimmy, whose marriage brought him close to the aptly named Savage family and who’s done hard time for robbery. It would be just like Jimmy, Sean knows, to ignore his friend’s official efforts and go after the killer himself. But Sean would be a lot more worried if he knew what Dave’s wife Celeste knows: that hours after catching sight of Katie in the last bar she visited on the night of her death, Dave staggered home covered with somebody else’s blood. Burrowing deep into his three sorry heroes and the hundred ties that bind them unbearably close, Lehane weaves such a spellbinding tale that it’s easy to overlook the ramshackle mystery behind it all.
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on his characters’ heads.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16316-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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