Messy detective story with a sharp, self-important political agenda set during the Zapatista revolt, co-written by insurgency leader Marcos and Spanish-Mexican novelist Taibo.
The pair alternate chapters and pursue individual storylines that more or less converge at the end with the bad guy’s apprehension. Marcos follows the mission of 61-year-old Zapatista warrior Elías Contreras, sent by “El Sup”—Marcos writing about himself in the third person—into the “Monster” (Mexico City) to “pick up city ways.” Elías’s folksy, plainspoken narrative conveys the Zapatistas’ political philosophy; he offers brief biographies of some members of this group from the mountains of southeast Mexico made up largely of indigenous peoples and internationals. Taibo, for his part, brings back Héctor Balascoarán Shayne, the one-eyed Mexico City detective familiar from Taibo’s own mystery series (Return to the Same City, 1996, etc.), who has been receiving cryptic, paranoid messages on his answering machine from Jesús María Alvarado, a former buddy and political prisoner who was murdered in 1969. Is the caller Alvarado’s son, or his ghost? Whoever the voice belongs to, his messages implicate a corrupt character named Morales, a guerrilla-turned-official who disappeared during the Dirty War waged by previous governments (not that the current one is portrayed here as any better). Alerted by El Sup to the menace of Morales’s possible reappearance, Elías runs into Balascoarán in Mexico City, and the two set out in pursuit. The plot swiftly devolves into a detailed rehashing of insurgent maneuvering over the decades, topped by a veritable bludgeoning litany of “the bad and the evil,” according to authorities ranging from Don Quixote to Leonard Peltier.
A disjointed work.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-933354-07-0
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Categories: GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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In Brennan’s (Nothing To Hide, 2019, etc.) new series launch, a hard-edged female LAPD undercover cop and an ambitious FBI special agent race to catch a serial killer before he strikes again.
On paid administrative leave since an incident with a suspect went wrong, a restless Detective Kara Quinn is on an early morning run in her hometown of Liberty Lake, Washington, when she discovers the flayed corpse of a young nurse. In D.C., FBI Special Agent in Charge Mathias Costa is staffing the new Mobile Response Team, designed to cover rural areas underserved by law enforcement, when his boss assigns Matt and analyst Ryder Kim to Liberty Lake. The notorious Triple Killer, who murders three random victims, three days apart, every three years, has returned. With only six days to identify and catch the culprit, and only three days until he kills again, the team is “on a very tight clock.” What should be on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense turns into a slog marred by pedestrian prose (“she heard nothing except birds chirping…”), a convoluted plot slowed down by a focus on dull bureaucratic infighting, and flat character development. The sole exception is the vividly drawn Kara. Smart, angry, defensive, complicated, she fascinates both the reader and Matt ("Kara Quinn was different—and he couldn’t put his finger on why”).
Inside this bloated novel is a lean thriller starring a strong and damaged protagonist who's as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0944-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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Lukewarm thriller from bestselling Brown (Hello, Darkness, 2003, etc.).
Sayre Hoyle doesn’t believe her brother Danny committed suicide, and she’s returned home to prove it—but it seems nothing ever changes in Destiny, Louisiana. The small town looks the same as ever, and the same good old boys are sitting in the same vinyl booths at the same diner, conniving and backstabbing and telling lies. Too bad one of them just happens to be Sayre’s daddy, Huff Hoyle. A self-made rich man in a poor parish, he owns a smoke-belching iron foundry, a hellish place that at least provides employment for the beaten-down men of Destiny. If industrial accidents do happen in one of ’em now and then, well, that’s God’s will. Tough-talking Huff don’t want the government OSHA boys anywhere near his foundry, and that goes double for union organizers and other un-American busybodies. Sayre’s heard it all before—and still doesn’t trust either him or her creepy older brother, Chris, who took so much pleasure in tormenting her when they were young. And there’s Huff’s new right-hand man, lawyer Beck Merchant, to contend with. What exactly does Beck stand to gain by his involvement with Huff and cronies? If only he weren’t so good-looking and sexy. . . . Back to the story: Did Slap Watkins, jug-eared, degenerate scion of inbred bayou-dwellers, kill gentleman Danny in a fit of rage when Danny refused to hire Slap’s fellow parolees? Nah. Slap doesn’t have the brains or coordination to kill a June bug. Back to the subplot: Will the tyrannical Huff resort to violence when his ironworkers defy him and go out on strike? And back to the reason Sayre hates Huff: He forced her to have an abortion, performed by an incompetent doctor who tied her, screaming, to the table in his back room. And now for the reason Beck hates Huff . . . .
Sluggish plot hemmed in by too much backstory and going-through-the-motions prose. Not Brown’s best.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-4553-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
Categories: GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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