What would be an ordinary case for any other lawyer—the murder of thrice- (or maybe only twice-) married Sandra Nichols- -emerges at the far side of Higgins's looking glass in dazzlingly kaleidoscopic slabs of dialogue. Judge Henry Lawler is convinced that Sandra, whose body was found months after she disappeared, was murdered by her latest ex, the wealthy, idle Peter Wade. And he tells his old classmate Jerry Kennedy, whom he wants to recruit, that it won't be easy to nail him: Chances are that Peter, who's never raised a finger in his life, didn't break his pattern this time, but hired somebody- -probably his old bud Brian Ross, a ``terminal marine'' whose own liaison with Sandra is memorialized in a ``Semper Fi'' tattoo she's wearing in a very private place. With no obvious date for the murder (Peter's prissy lawyer is objecting even to the word murder) and no likely way to place Peter at the scene, a lesser legal avenger would be hamstrung. But Kennedy, that well-known criminal attorney (Penance for Jerry Kennedy, 1985, etc.) who doesn't do civil, has agreed to take the case as a wrongful-death suit on behalf of Sandra's three children. So he doesn't have to prove Peter's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; all he has to do is prove a 51% likelihood of guilt. Tossing off dozens of Higgins's trademark anecdotes along the way about Sandra's abusive father, her spouses (including one casual bigamist), and everyone else who ever knew her, Kennedy eventually confronts his clients: Lucy, who likes to cut herself with a razor (but treats each cut with antiseptic); demurely bulimic Maggie; and Jeffrey, who gets followed from place to place by suspicious fires. The upshot is sad, sordid, unsurprising, and deeply satisfying. Like Swan Boats at Four (1995), this fabulously shaggy narrative may remind bemused newcomers of Achilles endlessly pursuing the tortoise. Fans will know exactly what to expect, and treasure it accordingly.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-3747-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...
A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.
Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk.
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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