Pinpoint plotting and sure sense of place make this tale a winner.
A forensic archaeologist returns home from Ireland in search of evidence that her brother-in-law was responsible for her sister’s murder, long deemed unsolvable by local police.
Cormac Maguire is in Donegal, reuniting with the father who abandoned him as a child to chase wild dreams in South America. But his heart is in Minnesota with his lover Nora Gavin (Lake of Sorrows, 2004, etc.), who spent the last two years with him in Dublin unearthing the mysteries of bodies found preserved in peat. Now a more pressing mystery brings her home. Her sister Tríona was murdered three years ago. Nora is sure that Tríona’s slick, handsome husband, Peter Hallett, bashed her face in and stuffed her body in the trunk of her car. But no one, not even Nora’s parents, will believe her—except Frank Cordova, the brooding police detective Nora shared more than her suspicions with before Cormac came on the scene. As Cormac chases ghosts—like Mary Heaney, thought by Glencolumbkille folk a selkie, a half-seal, half-human who disappeared from her family to return to the sea—Nora finds a real body. Police discover Natalie Russo, a sculler at the Twin Cities Rowing Club, in a shallow grave at Hidden Falls Park. Seeds in Natalie’s hair, including those from a rare plant called false mermaid, are similar to those found in Triona’s. If only Nora and Frank can make the connection before Peter’s upcoming second marriage puts his new wife Amanda and his daughter Elizabeth in mortal danger.
Pinpoint plotting and sure sense of place make this tale a winner.Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-6376-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there’s a good series to continue.
The latest maritime thriller in the NUMA series starring Kurt Austin (The Rising Sea, 2018, etc.)
In 1968, the French submarine Minerve sinks without a trace in the Mediterranean. In the present day, an oil rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing and badly injuring many workers. Enter Kurt Austin, head of Special Projects at the National Underwater Marine Agency. Kurt leads a team that assists in marine emergencies, so they respond to the Mayday call and quickly find a stream of underwater flame—escaping gas is burning in the water, down “as far as the eye could see.” It’s a fire that needs no oxygen, a phenomenon Kurt’s team has never seen. NUMA calls the disaster clear-cut sabotage, and Kurt’s assignment is to find the guilty party. Said party is Tessa Franco, CEO of Novum Industria, who is busily sabotaging oil production around the world. She wants to promote her new fuel cell to replace “this mad reliance on fossil fuels” and become even more stinking rich than she already is. She has “infected half the world’s major oil fields” by pumping oil-eating bacteria into them, rendering them useless. “She is the oil crisis,” Kurt tells the president. Kurt's and Tessa’s teams race to locate the Minerve, which may have critical genetic research Israel commissioned half a century ago. There are great action scenes underwater and on the surface, where Tessa’s seaplane, the Monarch, is almost as big as a 747. Rotten to the core, Tessa wants her lackeys to “get rid of Austin once and for all.” Her odds look mighty good considering the firepower she brings to bear.
Fast-paced, imaginative fun. May Kurt and crew survive, as there’s a good series to continue.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1902-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
Fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins will find this comfortingly familiar despite (or maybe because of?) the shocks and...
In Pinborough’s (Behind Her Eyes, 2018, etc.) twisty, decade-spanning, multivoiced thriller, everyone has secrets: teenager Ava; her mom, Lisa; and Lisa’s best friend, Marilyn.
On the surface, all three women fulfill the roles expected of them, and they support and love one another, but they don’t truly know each other. Ava, a competitive swimmer, is finishing up her exams and sneaking around with her first boyfriend while overly protective mom Lisa is about to clinch a big contract at work—and maybe even go on a date with a handsome millionaire client. Marilyn has been dealing with headaches at home, but she’s still game for a shopping trip to outfit Lisa for that big date. Soon, however, they will discover that someone else in their lives has a secret much darker than any they carry. This person is a murderer who is stalking a childhood friend who, they believe, betrayed their deepest trust. There are a lot of plot twists and reveals within the novel, some of which are surprising, some of which are expected. Pinborough weaves several different time periods and several different narrative voices to create layers of character and conflict, but the characters are types often found in psychological thrillers, and while their problems are often relatable, at least at first, they aren’t particularly engaging. It’s clear which decisions, and which silences, are going to get them into trouble, and yet, as people do, they carry on anyway. The one element that sets Pinborough’s novel apart from the slew of similar thrillers is the emphasis on female empowerment and the power of female relationships. These women need no one to save them, no knights in shining armor or handsome cops. As Marilyn succinctly puts it, “Fuck. That. Shit.”
Fans of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins will find this comfortingly familiar despite (or maybe because of?) the shocks and turns along the way.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-285679-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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