Dawson creates a charming and intelligent heroine, but the mystery is almost an afterthought to the atmospheric descriptions...
A storied train rushes toward a date with death.
Jill McLeod is a Zephyrette, the only female member of the crew on the famous California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to California in the early 1950s. Her duties involve smoothing the way for passengers, administering light first aid, and dispensing information about the stunning scenery only train riders or serious hikers ever get to see. As the train makes its way west this time, Jill slowly gets to know the current crop of passengers, some making short journeys, others traveling all the way to Oakland. Some are pleasant, like Miss Brandon, an Englishwoman who adores Agatha Christie, and others obnoxious, like Mr. Fontana, a businessman who uses his large compartment for high-stakes poker games. The observant Jill is sure that some of them are hiding secrets that are none of her business unless they affect the operation of the train. Jill is pleasantly surprised that her uncle Sean Cleary, a retired Denver police officer, is on the train but a bit worried because his son, Doug, who’s estranged from his father, is also along for the ride. She’s taken aback by the casual racism travelers display toward the largely black train staff but bites her tongue because the passenger is king. Her cousin Doug antagonizes Mr. Fontana both by winning a large sum from him at the poker table and by showing his attraction to a lovely Southern belle who’s fighting off unwanted attention from the businessman. Undaunted, Jill soldiers on, making life pleasant for the passengers, until a murderer strikes. Then she uses her skills as an observer (Death Rides the Zephyr, 2013) to help solve the crime.
Dawson creates a charming and intelligent heroine, but the mystery is almost an afterthought to the atmospheric descriptions of this chapter in the 21-year reign of the Zephyr, whose famous Vista-Dome cars delighted passengers with unparalleled views.Pub Date: April 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-56474-569-9
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Perseverance Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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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