The first installment in García Sáenz’s White City Trilogy is a work of impressive scope and depth, compellingly written.
After a long hiatus, has a notorious serial killer returned to terrorize a city in northern Spain?
On the eve of Día de Santiago in Vitoria, Inspector Unai "Kraken" López de Ayala is summoned to a bizarre murder scene. A young couple has been found in the crypt of an old cathedral, murdered and artfully arranged with flowers near their heads and feet. Estíbaliz Ruiz de Gauna, Kraken’s colleague in the Criminal Investigation Unit, is shaken by the similarities to the crimes of a notorious serial killer who terrorized Vitoria 20 years earlier. Famed archaeologist Tasio Ortiz de Zárate is serving a lengthy prison sentence for those crimes. Kraken, who urges caution in linking the new case to the earlier serial crimes, is surprised to find that his new superintendent, Alba Díaz de Salvatierra, is the woman he just flirted with on the street. Tension rises with the discovery of more victims, similarly arranged. The investigative path does indeed lead to Tasio, who has become a successful screenwriter behind bars and fashions himself a criminologist and has reached out to Kraken, offering his expertise. Unnervingly, Tasio continues to shadow Kraken’s investigation and send him messages about the crimes. Flashbacks take the reader to 1969, when an alarmingly composed man named Álvaro Urbina is grimly determined to kill one Javier Ortiz de Zárate, whose relationship to Tasio is incrementally revealed. As Kraken tries to ferret out the killer, flashbacks move the complex backstory forward and into clearer focus.
The first installment in García Sáenz’s White City Trilogy is a work of impressive scope and depth, compellingly written.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-9859-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
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 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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