An entertaining mix of gumshoe grind, wise-cracking dialogue, and high action.
In this mystery series opener, blackmail, kidnapping, and a rash of murders in 1956 Los Angeles keep a private detective on his toes while he wrestles with PTSD.
Cole Dunbar, a 30-something World War II veteran and former cop, is sitting in his unair-conditioned office enduring another day of LA’s hot, smoggy summer when he receives a phone call from the gorgeous, mysterious socialite Monique Smythe. The gumshoe is still decompressing from a recurring nightmare that leaves him drenched in sweat every morning, and his rough exterior is on full display when he meets with Monique. She is obviously not one of his usual down-and-out clients. When she finally pours out her story, Cole learns that she is dealing with blackmail and a threat to her father’s life. Mesmerized by her beauty and what Cole perceives is her fragile inner core, he takes the case. It is a decision that will repeatedly put his own life in jeopardy, whether he is in LA or Mexico hunting for clues. In addition, Cole suffers from a severe case of “combat fatigue.” He is seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. James Grimes, to help unravel the root cause of his low self-esteem, a trauma that reaches back to childhood and has been triggered by his experiences in Japan (Okinawa planted “its own battle flag of hurt and pain deep in my soul”). If the premise and dialogue of the primary mystery appear torn from an old Humphrey Bogart script, this secondary plotline involving Cole’s PTSD adds a modern twist to the 1950s-style detective story—and it keeps things intriguing, even during the sections in which the action slows down. Bernstein effectively floods the narrative with atmospherics evocative of LA in the ’50s, from Cole’s favorite eatery (Pink’s for chili dogs) and his local beer of choice (Eastside) to the period’s pop music and Hollywood icons. And Cole’s quotations from early-20th-century novelist/screenwriter John Fante peppered throughout the tale lay a soulful foundation for his character’s development. Cole is a promising series lead—if his breakfasts of Eastside six packs with Camel cigarette chasers and all those chili dogs don’t get him first.
An entertaining mix of gumshoe grind, wise-cracking dialogue, and high action.Pub Date: April 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781667878119
Page Count: 322
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2023
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 top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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