Hall's latest blast of Florida heat resurrects stylish dropout Dick Thorn (Tropical Freeze, 1989), hell-bent on avenging the suspicious diving-accident death of his ladylove Darcy Richards, who'd been asking one question too many about red tilapia. Red what? Even ichthyologists would be surprised to learn that this tasty, but ugly, brown fish has now been genetically engineered in everybody's favorite designer color—a billion-dollar secret Darcy had gotten wise to when checking surveillance tapes for Thorn's old buddy Sugarman. A colorful attempt on his own life alerts Thorn to two enemies out of your most atavistic dreams: Roy Murtha, the liquor- store owner Darcy had first heard mention red tilapia, and Harden Winchester, a canny, demented Gulf Coast fish farmer who's spent millions developing the fast-breeding fish so that he can release them into the Gulf, thereby wiping out thousands of less competitive species and incidentally ending the only life his ex-wife Doris' dying husband, a commercial fisherman, can imagine. Best Villain honors, though, go to Harden's daughter Silvie, ``the girl with no sex,'' who feeds each man she meets a tale of incest in order to persuade him to go up against invincible Harden. When Thorn, eager for his own crack at Harden, falls in with Silvie, things really heat up. Thorn's brief, maniacally funny masquerade as Harden's chief fish-farm rival ends with Thorn heading back to Harden's place—where Doris, eager for a reunion with the daughter she abandoned years ago, and Murtha, hot on her trail, are also bound. Merry, brawny, and rambunctious: guaranteed to please fans of John D. MacDonald, Elmore Leonard, and anybody in between.
Pub Date: April 4, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-30798-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
Everything is not quite as it seems in this quick, satisfying read.
A woman is on the run with cash, a burner phone, and plans that have taken most of a year to build. But can she escape?
Beth Murphy, from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, has planned every detail of her departure meticulously; from her new name to her new appearance and car, she is leaving nothing to chance. But the person she is fleeing continues to be an overwhelming presence in her mind, and she expects to see him hiding in every shadow. He has trained her well through years of abuse, and she knows that he will find her—the only question is when. Her jumpiness during the days and terror-soaked nights are hardly going unnoticed, and it becomes obvious to her new co-workers and rooming-house neighbors that she is not who she says she is. From her new life as a cleaner in Atlanta, Beth obsessively tracks the media coverage of a missing woman from Pine Bluff, Sabine Hardison, and the police’s search for her. Sabine is a successful realtor who disappeared one afternoon while her husband was away on business, but as the police dig deeper, it becomes clear that this was not a happy marriage. Suspense author Belle (Three Days Missing, 2018, etc.) switches among three points of view as the story unfolds, giving insights into Beth and her efforts to re-create herself; Sabine’s husband, Jeffrey, who is picking up the pieces left behind by his wife's disappearance while coming to terms with the aggressive publicity around his marriage’s shortcomings; and the detective, Marcus, who has been assigned to find out where Sabine has gone. Is Beth actually Sabine? Is she not? Are those continuity errors the whisper of red herrings or just the different ways multiple characters perceive the same events? An unexpected ending hinges on information missing from the story.
Everything is not quite as it seems in this quick, satisfying read.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0859-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
For once Deaver takes more effort to establish his hero’s bona fides than to give him a compelling and logical plot. The...
Veteran thrillmeister Deaver kicks off a new series about a man who collects rewards for a living.
Don’t call Colter Shaw a private eye, or a freelance investigator, or even a soldier of fortune, though his job includes elements of all three. The son of a cranky survivalist who died years ago amid suspicious circumstances, light-footed Shaw has returned close to his childhood home in the Bay Area in the hope of claiming the $10,000 Frank Mulliner is offering for the return of his daughter, Sophie, a college student who stormed out after the two of them fought over the FOR SALE sign outside his house and hasn’t been seen since. Shaw, who has the cool-headed but irritating habit of calculating the numerical odds on every possibility, thinks there’s a 60 percent chance that Sophie’s dead, “murdered by a serial killer, rapist or a gang wannabe.” Even though he accepts rewards only for rescues, not recoveries, he begins sorting through the scant evidence, quickly gets a hot lead about Sophie’s fate, and just as quickly realizes that Detective Dan Wiley, of the Joint Major Crimes Task Force, should have followed exactly the same clues days ago. (The rapidly shifting relations between Shaw and the law, in fact, are a particular high point here.) The day after Shaw’s search for Sophie comes to a violent end, he’s already, in the time-honored manner of Deaver’s bulldog heroes (The Burial Hour, 2017, etc.), on the trail of a second abduction, that of LGBT activist Henry Thompson. Readers who haven’t skipped the prologue will know that still a third kidnap victim, very pregnant Elizabeth Chabelle, will need to be rescued the following day. Thompson’s grief-stricken partner, Brian Byrd, tells Shaw, “It’s like this guy’s playing some goddamn sick game”—a remark Deaver’s fans will know to give just as much weight as Shaw himself does.
For once Deaver takes more effort to establish his hero’s bona fides than to give him a compelling and logical plot. The results are subpar for this initial installment but more encouraging for the promised series.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-53594-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
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