The 45th entry in this fleet, easy-reading series provides a dramatic opening scene, a second act guaranteed to raise your...
Lt. Eve Dallas (Echoes in Death, 2017, etc.) investigates the murder of a gossip columnist whose death answers a thousand prayers.
Eve’s already-fraught meeting with irritating forensic anthropologist Dr. Garnet DeWinter at the fashionable watering hole Du Vin turns abruptly worse when a woman staggers out of the ladies’ room and bleeds out under her eyes. The victim, self-styled social information reporter Larinda Mars, had dirt on just about everyone who mattered—including, as it awkwardly turns out, the owner of Du Vin, who just happens to be Roarke, Eve’s billionaire husband—and wasn’t shy about digging under every rock and paying off or blackmailing possible informants for more. So although several witnesses and the security cameras so ubiquitous in 2061 swiftly identify a likely suspect, it’s impossible to distinguish that well-muffled figure from dozens of other wannabe Mars-slayers. Following their noses, Eve and her partner, Detective Amelia Peabody, focus on three of Larinda’s marks: talk screen queen Annie Knight, baseball star Wylee Stamford, and teenage actress Missy Lee Durante. Larinda was indeed blackmailing them all over secrets worth killing to preserve, sparking the moral outrage Eve’s never shy about revealing on behalf of blackmail victims “mostly trying to protect loved ones as much, maybe more, than themselves.” But the nominal victim’s insatiably feral nature makes it hard to work up an equal level of outrage over her murder or to feel much of a sense of closure when Eve plucks the perp from a crowded field of suspects who would all have been perfectly within their rights in shutting down the blackmail factory by fair means or foul.
The 45th entry in this fleet, easy-reading series provides a dramatic opening scene, a second act guaranteed to raise your most self-righteous hackles, and a denouement even Robb must have recognized as an anticlimax.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-12315-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
A character-driven procedural that subordinates its mystery to a strong sense of place and family ties.
A poor New Mexico border county’s residents are proud of an unusual tourist attraction and concerned about a possible new development that could threaten it, the jobs it provides, and ultimately the county’s peace.
Posadas County (Lies Come Easy, 2018, etc.) is home to NightZone, a combination of astronomical observatory, high-end hotel, restaurant, and walking trails that draws tourists from all over the world, most arriving on a purpose-built narrow-gauge train from the county seat. Taciturn sheriff Bobby Torrez sends his more socially adept undersheriff, Estelle Reyes-Guzman, to the county commissioners meeting, where developer Kyle Thompson, who just bought a large tract of land next to the observatory, is expected to make a presentation. Instead of coming, Kyle sends word that he wants to meet with Miles Waddell, who used part of the hefty fortune he inherited to finance NightZone and worries that a large development will ruin the near-total darkness the observatory needs. Eventually Kyle sends along his gun-toting wife, Lydia, who accepts Miles’ offer of a room at NightZone, has a pleasant chat with Miles and Estelle, reveals nothing of Kyle’s plans, but later tells Estelle that he doesn’t want to ruin NightZone. The sheriffs have other fish to fry when a gunman shoots up the local newspaper office and wounds two workers. The weapon is a .22 aimed with precision from a stolen vehicle. Torrez suspects his wild nephew, Quentin, may be involved. That case pales when Kyle Thompson either falls or is pushed off a mesa to his death. The way his body lands indicates murder, and his wife isn’t willing to leave the case to the police. Both Thompsons were New York State Police officers, so Lydia has investigative skills, but her pain may lead her into danger. The experienced sheriffs must unravel both cases in Havill’s 24th Posadas mystery.
A character-driven procedural that subordinates its mystery to a strong sense of place and family ties.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9909-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Compelling characters and a sexy, angst-filled bunch of mysteries add up to a winning series debut.
After ending the long-running Grim Reaper series (Summoned to Thirteenth Grave, 2019, etc.), Jones introduces a sexy, funny, tough new heroine in Sunshine Vicram, the police chief of Del Sol, New Mexico.
Sun fled her hometown years before after the horrifying experience of being kidnapped when she was 17—an experience she doesn’t talk about, though it’s never out of her mind. After becoming a police officer, she worked most recently only half an hour away in Santa Fe before her parents nominated her for chief without telling her. Now that she and her 14-year-old daughter, Auri, have settled into a cottage in her parents’ backyard, she lands a case that brings back all her worst fears and cracks open suppressed memories. Auri’s first day at school is blighted by mean girls and rumors that identify her as a police snitch. The best part of her day is meeting heart-stopping Cruz De los Santos, a talented poet who’s the coolest guy in school. Del Sol has a reputation as a place where weird things happen, but the toughest ordeal for Sun is seeing the man she’s loved forever. Levi Ravinder, owner of Dark River Shine distillery, is the successful member of a dysfunctional, crime-ridden family. At first he responds to her coolly, but the atmosphere between them is combustible. Then Marianna St. Aubin literally crashes into the police station to report the kidnapping of her daughter, Sybil. For years Sybil told her parents about dreams that she’d be taken and killed before her 15th birthday, but they never believed her. A desperate hunt for Sybil and Levi’s nephew, Jimmy, who has autism and is also missing, reveals the long-dead body of Levi’s uncle and the shack Sun suddenly realizes she was kept in after her abduction. Both Sun and Auri must fight to overcome the dangerous secrets that spring up from nowhere.
Compelling characters and a sexy, angst-filled bunch of mysteries add up to a winning series debut.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-14944-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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