Nonetheless, a worthy addition to the famous-dead-people-as-private-investigators genre. Here, the hero is treated as a real...
A killer's on the loose in mid–19th-century New York, and it’s up to a cunning showman and a gloomy scribbler to catch him.
Schechter’s first Edgar Allan Poe suspense yarn, Nevermore (1999), teamed up the gothic writer with frontiersman/politician Davy Crockett. For his second outing, the reluctant investigator finds himself making a meager living from his journalistic work, his “tales of the grotesque and arabesque” ignored by a public that embraces more sentimental fiction. Such rejection upsets him not just as an artist—and Schechter portrays him as a singularly egotistical and precious specimen of that species—but as a provident husband. Now, however, an unlikely patron appears in showman and huckster extraordinaire, P.T. Barnum, who hires Poe not only to add a dash of literary class to his publications but—on the strength of Poe’s success in the Nevermore case—to help solve a recent murder that’s being indirectly blamed on him. The dead woman, Isabel Somers, was killed in a manner reminiscent of a grisly, infamous case a few years ago that Barnum had detailed in one of the more popular wax tableaux in his museum, a display one newspaper claims has encouraged the murder. Poe goes to work, leaving nary a clue unturned or an emotion unexpressed. Schechter’s style is high fun, with Poe’s arrogantly highfalutin’ vocal gymnastics (“My soul was possessed with a vague yet intolerable anguish!”) is typical—matched only by Barnum’s shameless prolixity. Despite some evocative Alienist-style scene-setting, the actual investigation, sad to say, is a lot less involving than the outsized protagonists.
Nonetheless, a worthy addition to the famous-dead-people-as-private-investigators genre. Here, the hero is treated as a real person, not a stiff literary icon.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2001
ISBN: 0-671-04115-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
Determined to shield her family from violence, a woman becomes a fierce freelance crime fighter in this mostly satisfying...
In the aftermath of a horrific crime, a woman makes herself over into a powerful protector—or perhaps an avenger.
Pinter (The Castle, 2019, etc.) already has the Henry Parker thriller series under his belt. In this book he introduces another potential series character, Rachel Marin. The story opens with a warm domestic scene of a young woman making dinner for her husband and two kids when a shattering (but undescribed) discovery intervenes. Jump ahead seven years, and single mom Rachel is living in another town several states away. When a mugger jumps her as she’s walking home from work, she leaves him bleeding in the street and hurries home to her bookish son, Eric, and sweet little daughter, Megan. Keeping them safe is her mission in life. But when she sees a news report about a body found on the ice beneath a nearby bridge, she’s riveted. The cops assigned to the case, detectives John Serrano and Leslie Tally, are shocked to discover the body is that of the town’s disgraced former mayor, Constance Wright. They’re even more shocked when Rachel, whom they don’t know, sends Serrano a message that the death was no suicide: “Constance Wright was murdered. And I can prove it.” When Serrano and Tally go to question Wright’s sketchy ex-husband, Rachel shows up at the same time, and they don’t know whether to order her away or be grateful for her help. Pinter builds a complex plot on the dual mysteries of Constance’s murder and Rachel’s transformation from suburban mom to crack investigator and lethal streetfighter. But the story has so many subplots and timelines that it can feel overstuffed, and some crucial questions asked early on are answered so late the reader might be surprised to be reminded of them. Pinter creates engaging characters, though, and keeps the suspense taut.
Determined to shield her family from violence, a woman becomes a fierce freelance crime fighter in this mostly satisfying thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0590-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is secondhand tough-guy stuff, memorable only in that it feels like you've read it all before.
A former mob enforcer–turned–private eye is called in to investigate the savage murder of a Mafia leg-breaker in New York's Hudson Valley and finds himself on the trail of corporate espionage and a serial killer long believed dead.
The second book in Barron's series featuring Isaiah Coleridge (Blood Standard, 2018) seems, more than the debut, an obvious attempt to establish Coleridge as a strongman smartass in the Jack Reacher mold. The fight scenes are the written equivalent of action-movie choreography but without suspense, because the setup—Isaiah being constantly outnumbered—is so clearly a prelude for the no-sweat beat downs he doles out to the various thugs who get in his way. There's nary a memorable wisecrack in the entire book. What does stick in the mind are the sections that go out of their way to be writerly. It's not enough to say that it was a starry night in the Alaskan wilderness. Coleridge (the name is a clue to the series' literary aspirations) says, "I could've read a book by the cascading illumination of the stars." A later flash of insight is conveyed by "The scalpel of grim epiphany sliced into my consciousness." What with the narrative that spreads like spider cracks in glass and the far-too-frequent flashbacks to the man who was Coleridge's mentor, you might wish another scalpel had made its way through the manuscript.
This is secondhand tough-guy stuff, memorable only in that it feels like you've read it all before.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1289-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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