Holton must be getting more sleep. His fourth plunges into the murky waters of the Chicago police procedural is his least phantasmagoric, most cinematic book to date. The case begins quietly (though in fact the opening scene is the only quiet moment here) with the discovery of a dead soldier detailed to guard Astrolab Industries' arsenal of high-tech weaponry. Before you can say Rambo, an impressively armored assassin has used Astrolab's latest gear to blow up the Temple of Allah, stronghold of Minister Abdul Ali Malik, a.k.a. fence/pimp Slick Rick Johnson. The assault on Allah's emissary is only the first strike (if you don't count that army guard) in millionaire Steven Zalkin's plan to annihilate everyone who gave him a hard time during his last stretch in the Windy City 15 years ago. Since Zalkin (nÇ Martin Zykus), as Holton reveals in two chunky flashbacks, was a lowly busboy who left Chicago back then wanted for rape and aggravated assault and just having confessed to multiple homicides, that's quite a list of targets. There's Sister Mary Louise Stallings, the saintly rape victim who took holy orders instead of turning Zykus in. There's Commander Larry Cole (Chicago Blues, p. 336, etc.) and Sergeant Blackie Silvestri, the two officers who kept arresting Zykus and were forced to let him go by corrupt and incompetent superiors. There's Frank Delahanty, sozzled Times-Herald columnist who ridiculed Zykus, and who's now using his column to bait Zalkin, not even aware—as nobody else seems to notice either—that Zalkin is really Zykus. (Eerily, Zalkin is arrested once again in his present-day incarnation, and once again released by the dim- witted top brass.) Can Cole and his staunch colleagues take Zalkin as Zykus before Zalkin uses the last of his stolen armaments to reduce the Second District police station to a fine powder? Newcomers to Holton's supercharged procedurals will find this season's relatively sedate installment their best chance of hopping this runaway train.
Pub Date: Feb. 12, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-86281-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1996
Not this time, though. The fact-based mutilations are so outré you just know the answer’s going to be a letdown, and it...
Dead fish and game are only the appetizers for Warden Joe Pickett’s biggest problems in his fourth case.
It’s obvious that cavalier local fisherman Jeff O’Bannon is to blame for the fish floating belly-up in Crazy Woman Creek. But who’s killed the elk, excised the flesh from half his face, and dragged off his enormous carcass? Who’s killed 12 head of Don Hawkins’s cattle in exactly the same way? And has this slaughter of innocents been nothing more than preparation for the remarkably similar murders of ranch hand Tuff Montegue and water-engineering exec Stuart Tanner? Robey Hersig, the County Attorney heading the hastily assembled Northern Wyoming Murder and Mutilations Task Force, lists the likeliest causes: “BIRDS . . . CULTS . . . DISTURBED INDIVIDUALS . . . ARABS . . . GOVERNMENT AGENTS . . . GRIZZLY BEAR . . . ALIENS.” But Joe, skeptical of all these explanations, demands the right to investigate on his own. Even though his mortal enemy, Sheriff Bud Barnum, keeps reminding him he’s only a fish-and-game warden, nobody can deny that Joe’s pulled off some spectacular victories in the past (Winterkill, 2003, etc.).
Not this time, though. The fact-based mutilations are so outré you just know the answer’s going to be a letdown, and it is—even though Joe and his family sweat out suspenseful duels with a self-styled paranormal expert and a trusted neighbor.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-399-15200-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
This anxiety-fueled stand-alone from Edgar nominee Gaylin (What Remains of Me, 2016, etc.) takes the gulf that naturally...
After a hit-and-run kills a high school student, the court of public opinion convicts a lonely outcast.
When Jackie Reed hears her 17-year-old son, Wade, sneaking out the night before the SATs, she knows she should stop him; instead, she pops a Xanax and returns to bed. At 4 a.m., Jackie’s 13-year-old, Connor, wakes to find a rain-soaked Wade hiding something in his closet; he considers tattling but promises to keep quiet. These seemingly innocuous decisions come back to haunt Jackie and Connor the next morning. While Officer Pearl Maze was working the graveyard shift at the Havenkill, New York, police department, Amy Nathanson burst through the door claiming to have been carjacked. According to Amy, her screams summoned 17-year-old Liam Miller, whom the thief ran over during his escape. The cops canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, and the Reeds are stunned to realize that Wade matches the suspect’s description. Evidence mounts against him, and the community ostracizes his family, but still Wade refuses to divulge his whereabouts at the time of the accident. The book opens with Wade’s suicide note, then flashes back five days and unfolds from the perspectives of Jackie, Connor, Pearl, and Amy. This narrative shift maximizes suspense by forcing readers to guess at Wade’s thoughts and actions, allowing Gaylin to insightfully explore the crime’s ripple effects.
This anxiety-fueled stand-alone from Edgar nominee Gaylin (What Remains of Me, 2016, etc.) takes the gulf that naturally develops between teenagers and their families and stocks it with sharks.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-264111-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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