The hero’s cautious but no pushover, intrepidly facing the engaging story’s multiple obstacles.
In Ritter’s debut thriller, a windfall of problems hits a trust officer, who may have uncovered embezzlement at his company while simultaneously infuriating a gang of racist bikers.
Jim Knight’s not a fan of David Walker, his condescending supervisor at Union Bank and Trust of Indiana. And Jim can’t understand why executive vice president and family friend Herbert Kelso indulges the alcoholic David’s often brazen behavior. Jim suspects misappropriation of funds when he and secretary Carla spot an unusual pattern in estates that David oversees, each balance ending in 99 cents. Jim’s latest case, meanwhile, is the estate of the recently deceased Jackson Whitingham, who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan. An inventory of Whitingham’s gun shop leaves Jim with more than 200 guns unaccounted for, sparking the interest of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But the documents that Jim finds hidden in the shop are what put the trust officer at risk. It seems a motorcycle gang of KKK members desperately wants a ledger and is fairly sure that Jim has it stashed somewhere. Jim, who can only hope that Kelso isn’t part of the embezzling scheme, has retired private investigator Lowell Webster looking into the activities of David and a couple of potential accomplices at Union Bank. Jim is also steering clear of the gang and ensuring that Carla, whom he’s undeniably falling for, is safe. The protagonist, as the title suggests, is squeaky clean, but his resolve will win over readers. Right before he leaves to bravely confront KKK bikers, for example, Jim writes letters to his family and Carla—“just in case.” Carla isn’t much as a character beyond Jim’s love interest, but she does add to the man’s increasing sense of dismay. And there’s a lot to fear: a Union Bank employee turns up murdered; bikers trail Jim; and someone ransacks his apartment. The elderly Lowell is a standout character, getting a job at the Oasis Club just to keep an eye on David and company, while Lowell’s nephew Larry Broadwick gathers evidence using his computer hacking skills. Ritter couples his contemporary setting with occasional bits of outmoded but droll dialogue: regarding Carla, ATF agent Bill Holt asks Jim, “Is she your steady?”
The hero’s cautious but no pushover, intrepidly facing the engaging story’s multiple obstacles.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4808-2353-2
Page Count: 318
Publisher: ArchwayPublishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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 suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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