The deaths of an Irish drug lord who was murdered in Spain and an Irish estate agent who jumped off Bristol’s storied Clifton Bridge turn out to have close and unholy connections.
It seems eminently logical that Cormac Horgan, the millionaire head of his family’s chain of estate agents, would have completed his financial ruin by topping himself at a spot favored by dozens of other suicides. Nor is anyone shedding tears over the demise of Declan (Bingo) Begley in sunny Spain—except for accountant Gemma Kearney’s mother, frantic because she hasn’t heard from her daughter for three weeks. Gemma was Begley’s girlfriend, she tells Sunday Herald reporter Siobhan Fallon, though no one in Begley’s circle can confirm the bond before Siobhan, still wobbly after her last encounter with evil (The Priest, 2011), is forcibly furloughed from the Herald. Neither can DI Mike Mulcahy, Siobhan’s friend in Ireland’s National Drugs Unit. Under mounting pressure because of diminishing budgets to justify his tiny unit’s existence, Mulcahy follows a tip from veteran informant Eddie McTiernan that seems to link still another death, the execution of Liverpool drug wholesaler Trevor Ronson several weeks ago, to an epic consignment of drugs by sea and a well-traveled Colombian assassin. Many dour interviews and ingenious schemes at cross-purposes later, Siobhan and Mulcahy realize that they’re pulling opposite ends of the same tangled skein and reluctantly join forces. And a good thing too, because they’ll both need each other to survive the denouement. Slow to gather momentum, with much checking of airline schedules. But the final bloody payoff is deeply satisfying.
Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1063-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
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