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STAR-CROSSED EGG TARTS

Good things lie ahead in this series.

The warm glow of a wedding can’t make up for a dead groomsman in this second installment of Chow’s Magical Fortune Cookie series.

As the new co-owner of the Jin Bakery alongside her mother, Felicity Jin feels honored to be spreading happiness to the world—even her surname shines, since it’s the Mandarin word for gold. It’s fitting, then, that the love she and her mother pour into their baked goods leaves the people who eat them with a warm glow of happiness. Felicity’s fortune cookies provide accurate predictions about the future, too. Now, Felicity is planning the perfect dessert for the Leanne Lum–Colton Wu wedding, a “cake” made of tiered egg tarts. She may not get to present it to the guests, though, since things go wrong before the wedding even gets started when groomsman Miles Wu, Colton’s cousin, fails to show up for the ceremony. Maybe the San Joaquin Valley heat has gotten to him, or maybe the bad vibes between the groom’s divorced parents inspired him to make himself scarce. Felicity has no attention to spare for the drama, since she’s been asked at the last minute to help prepare a traditional tea ceremony she knows little about. With the wedding processional seconds away, Colton asks Felicity’s friend Kelvin Love, the florist, to sub for Miles, hoping Miles will show up in time for the reception. When Miles is found dead under the tablecloth-covered cake table, though, the wedding night devolves into a criminal investigation. If that’s not enough for Felicity to contend with, her long-absent father shows up as a guest at the wedding, seemingly eager to catch up on what he’s missed, though Felicity’s mom warns her not to trust him after all this time.

Good things lie ahead in this series.

Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2025

ISBN: 9781250323255

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025

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TO DIE FOR

Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.

The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.

Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead. 

Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024

ISBN: 9781538757901

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024

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THE GREY WOLF

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.

At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024

ISBN: 9781250328137

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024

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