An addictive romance/adventure with well-developed protagonists.
This fourth installment of a New Orleans Mystery series sends an actor and amateur sleuth to Europe to rescue his fiancee.
The hidden forces orchestrating the chaos of the last three volumes in this series starring Jeff Chaussier have now threatened close relatives of his fiancee, Bryna: her brother, Brian, recently released from prison; his wife, Sarah; and their baby. It was decided that “the family had to disappear for a while” and that “Bryna should go with them as a stabilizing force for the baby.” But the months are slipping by and Bryna has not returned. Jeff begins to receive occasional disturbing letters from her suggesting that she is not free to leave. Among her “protectors” is the handsome and aggressive Gianni di Piantagione, who seems intent on either seducing or raping her. Sanchez (A Place Unchanged, 2015, etc.) has changed the format and tenor that fans have come to expect in this continuing saga. Jeff now shares first-person narrating responsibilities with Bryna, whose story is delivered through increasingly long, somber letters, some of which are never mailed. And the narrative takes on a more self-reflective tone. It becomes clear there is only one thing for Jeff to do. The world’s most phobic flyer will have to go to Italy, his trip funded by the man he thinks of as “Mi Padrino,” the enigmatic, gray-haired figure who may have sent Bryna and her family into hiding. In Sorrento, Jeff meets up with his brother, Jaime, who provides critical support fighting the bad guys. Jeff’s search for Bryna frequently sounds like a travelogue of Florence, Bologna, and Venice, sometimes overshadowing and slowing down the pace of the drama, although the author still delivers exciting action scenes. Meanwhile, chapters written in Bryna’s voice deftly reveal the gradual deterioration of her mental stability, turning the tale into a psychological thriller. Sanchez sprinkles in clues to the original mystery running through the saga, but as with any engaging soap opera, the puzzle isn’t quite complete. Because the appealing couple are not out of danger yet, another series installment appears likely.
An addictive romance/adventure with well-developed protagonists.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5169-1069-4
Page Count: 261
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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