An intelligent novelization of a hot environmental issue.
A woman tries to protect her family and her small Midwestern city from the dangerous impact of oil drilling in this drama.
When the Doornaert Oil and Gas Company proposes to drill for oil in Noredge, Ohio, many of the city’s inhabitants are thrilled at the prospect of the economic benefits. Mary Jenkins, however, worries that its method—hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”—will despoil the city’s ecosystem, endangering residents’ lives. To further complicate matters, her longtime boyfriend, Joe Bertolo, works for Doornaert, driving a truck that hauls “dirty water,” a toxic brew of salty liquid and various chemicals. Joe earns a good paycheck and is reluctant to stand up against his employer, but Mary notices a steep decline in his health, likely due to exposure to dangerous gases. Soon, Noredge undergoes the kind of transformation Mary was anxious about; her street turns into a messy swarm of dust and fumes while the downtown area becomes overcrowded with bustling activity, including crime. Then, Joe is badly hurt in an accident while driving his truck, causing a troublesome spill of dirty water in a nearby town, inviting a slew of negative media attention to the company. Mike Doyle—the new regional manager and Joe’s boss since Doornaert was bought by a larger company—deceitfully lays the blame for the crash on Joe’s faulty driving. Meanwhile, Noredge residents notice a terrible smell emanating from their water; fearing that their health is threatened, they begin to protest. Mary assumes a leadership role that propels her into the thick of the city’s politics. Smolders (Alone in Boca Raton, 2014, etc.) is deeply knowledgeable about the environmental dangers attached to fracking as well as its economic and political allure. (Early on, a Doornaert lawyer tells a group of Noredge citizens: “That shale, the ‘source rock,’ sits a few thousand feet under your city. Its oil and gas have been waiting there for us for more than four hundred million years. Haven’t we tested their patience long enough?”) In addition, the author sensitively dramatizes the issues without any heavy-handed ideological posturing. The writing is lucid, if lacking in literary style, but the story becomes overly congested with competing subplots, including some unnecessary romantic complications. Overall, though, Smolders keeps the plot marching at a brisk pace, and Mary emerges as a memorable heroine.
An intelligent novelization of a hot environmental issue.Pub Date: May 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2194-7
Page Count: 378
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
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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