A cesspool of miscreants floods a strong tale of conscience and crime.
A lawyer leaves Los Angeles for life in a small town but finds it full of thieves, murderers, and too many women in this mystery.
Chain-smoking, Jason Brinkman, in his mid-30s and once a highly paid associate at an LA law firm, struggles financially after moving to Sea Cliff on the coast. Unknown to him, it’s a town that nearly everyone is dying to get out of, at least one of them literally. Jason’s wife, Courtney, a rising star at his former firm, wants a divorce, announcing, “You’re holding me back, Jason.” Unlike Jason, she apparently didn’t refuse to sleep with the firm’s top producer for decades, Gretchen Fautz. Expenses and child support deluge Jason, who counts on getting money from Geraldo O’Brien, his biggest client and the builder to whom he lent his life savings to finance a luxury spec house. Rumored to be involved in drug dealing and a man who always said he wanted to live in Mexico, Geraldo has disappeared along with his girlfriend, Danni Tedeski, and Jason’s money. Left behind is Danni’s teenage daughter, Tiffany, who has a drug problem. Jason worries about Tiffany because his own unhappy childhood mirrors hers. In spite of Jason’s having local waitress Erin Jones as his main squeeze, a long-legged blond named Rory catches his attention, and young, tube-topped Nikki Beach has designs on him. What suddenly puts Jason and the whole town on notice is the televised hoisting of a rotting corpse that two kids spotted lodged in a storm drain. An abundance of intriguing characters doing really bad things moves Cameron’s engaging story quickly to the finish line. Adding another level are the incisive questions of conscience and ethics that plague Jason. Writing can be first rate, for example: “Jason’s parents had enjoyed too much success early in life and not enough later. With success came drugs and alcohol, and as success dwindled, more drugs and more alcohol.” But this book limits Latinos’ roles to drug dealers, thieves, and laborers.
A cesspool of miscreants floods a strong tale of conscience and crime.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5481-8636-4
Page Count: 390
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Mystery and horror mix in a creepy novel whose suspenseful ending hints at a very special sequel.
In an insular town in Northern Minnesota, a series of crimes stretches two Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents to their limits.
Harry Steinbeck is a rigid forensic scientist whose partner, Evangeline Reed, is intuitive and tends to bend rules. Both have pasts that haunt them. When Harry was a teenager, his sister vanished and was never found; Van grew up in a cult run by a charismatic grifter with an iron hand. Their latest assignment involves a cold case that’s turned hot since a body was found with a crushed skull and shotgun wounds—just like the earlier victims. Back in 1998, the entire Korhonen family was murdered while they slept in the town of Alku, where all the villagers are descendants of Finns originally driven out of their country under suspicion of witchcraft. Almost everyone in town works at the Carlton County Treatment Center, originally a hospital, then a psychiatric institution, and now basically a nursing home for serial killers. The dead man, Peter Weiss, was a nurse there. Harry usually avoids Duluth, where his mother still lives, because he blames himself for never having found his sister. The new, or old, case just adds to his guilt and stress. All the Alku families bear a strange resemblance to one another. That includes head psychiatrist Pekka Tervo, who’s married to a dead ringer for Nurse Ratched, and who can’t admit that the old and new cases are connected. The adult residents of Alku are keeping their secrets so closely guarded that only their children can help Harry and Van find the truth.
Mystery and horror mix in a creepy novel whose suspenseful ending hints at a very special sequel.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781662513985
Page Count: 331
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Once again, Muller combines a heartfelt but routine investigation with strong elements of a family reunion.
Just when you think things can’t get any worse for San Francisco, miscreants prowl the area determined to prove otherwise.
Someone has it in for several of the city’s privately owned roads. Now that vandals have dumped fertilizer, broken windows, spray-painted graffiti, and otherwise made life miserable for the residents of four different streets, a grassroots neighborhood coalition has hired private investigator Sharon McCone to keep an eye on Rowan Court, the most recent target, presumably so that she can report on the horse that’s already left the barn. A map that’s dropped off at the home of Ted Smalley, McCone’s office manager, sends her in a new direction, toward Herrera Terrace. Could that be the next spot the vandals have in mind? Why are they carrying out this campaign in the first place, and why are they tipping her off? McCone’s questioning of Theresa Segretti, her coalition contact at Rowan Court, and Sam Sage, an internet influencer/meth cooker on Bancroft Lane, comes up empty-handed. Meanwhile the latest casualties of the war on the streets are Sam’s meth lab and then Sam himself, whose flight to a cousin’s distant home extends his life by only a few hours. The motive for all this misbehavior is likely to puzzle readers a lot less than McCone and Hy Ripinsky, her husband and partner, but the identity of the perps is more surprising. Although you can see why Ripinsky announces at the end, “Well, McCone, this sure has been one of our more stressful experiences,” fans will probably nod in recognition rather than flinch under the stress.
Once again, Muller combines a heartfelt but routine investigation with strong elements of a family reunion.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781538724521
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
