Clever and fast-paced, this cocktail of romance and mystery goes down smooth with a nice finish.
A Windy City cop works a high-profile murder case, but his feelings for a suspect complicate the investigation.
One morning, a husband and wife turn up dead—she at their home in the tony Lincoln Park neighborhood, he at the office of Town Red Media, the ad agency they owned and ran with an iron fist. Ryan Doherty, the “top detective in Chicagoland,” is on the case, and if he can’t nab the killer quickly, his job is on the line. Assembling a list of possible suspects is easy since Scott and Carly Redding made a lot of enemies as they built their business. But could any of them have pulled off the crime? At first, it seems that both victims died of natural causes; there’s little evidence at either scene, so if someone killed this power couple, they were smart enough to thoroughly cover their tracks. One person who might be able to help uncover the truth is Catharine Lulling, a former Town Red executive, now holed up in a lavish North Shore mansion. She left the company under unpleasant circumstances but retained stock options that made her a millionaire. Doherty finds it hard to believe that the enigmatic, “eccentric” Catherine (she claims to be psychic) could have anything to do with her ex-bosses’ deaths. But there’s a chance Doherty’s attraction to Catharine blinds him to the truth. Is she hiding the killer’s real identity or something else? Moss’ page-turning debut novel is engrossing, with natural dialogue and a mystery that plays out in a mostly believable fashion, though the novel’s paranormal elements never quite mesh with the more realistic aspects of the book. Overall, the story is more fluffy than gritty, but with a hero as compelling as Doherty, few readers—especially those who have a soft spot for tough cops with sensitive souls—are likely to complain. Dashes of humor balance the darker moments in the engaging whodunit, which will leave readers guessing until the end.
Clever and fast-paced, this cocktail of romance and mystery goes down smooth with a nice finish.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-1937329563
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is secondhand tough-guy stuff, memorable only in that it feels like you've read it all before.
A former mob enforcer–turned–private eye is called in to investigate the savage murder of a Mafia leg-breaker in New York's Hudson Valley and finds himself on the trail of corporate espionage and a serial killer long believed dead.
The second book in Barron's series featuring Isaiah Coleridge (Blood Standard, 2018) seems, more than the debut, an obvious attempt to establish Coleridge as a strongman smartass in the Jack Reacher mold. The fight scenes are the written equivalent of action-movie choreography but without suspense, because the setup—Isaiah being constantly outnumbered—is so clearly a prelude for the no-sweat beat downs he doles out to the various thugs who get in his way. There's nary a memorable wisecrack in the entire book. What does stick in the mind are the sections that go out of their way to be writerly. It's not enough to say that it was a starry night in the Alaskan wilderness. Coleridge (the name is a clue to the series' literary aspirations) says, "I could've read a book by the cascading illumination of the stars." A later flash of insight is conveyed by "The scalpel of grim epiphany sliced into my consciousness." What with the narrative that spreads like spider cracks in glass and the far-too-frequent flashbacks to the man who was Coleridge's mentor, you might wish another scalpel had made its way through the manuscript.
This is secondhand tough-guy stuff, memorable only in that it feels like you've read it all before.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1289-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not exactly groundbreaking, but fans will enjoy this cozy Christmas addition to a long-running series.
Christmas is nigh, and there’s a murder to solve.
Inspector Nivens may have ambitions far beyond his local posting, but he’s so hapless as a detective that it’s no surprise when he loses a sensitive case involving the murder of well-to-do Margaret Starling in her yard to Inspector Gerald Witherspoon of the Metropolitan Police. Witherspoon, whose record is stellar, is independently wealthy, good-natured, and unaware that for years his staff and friends, especially his clever housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, have fed him the clues that have been indispensable in closing his murder cases (Mrs. Jeffries Delivers the Goods, 2019, etc.). Determined to solve the puzzle of Margaret’s murder before Christmas, Witherspoon’s staff scatter throughout the neighborhood of the Starling residence, each of them searching for clues using their questioning methods tailored to every social stratum of Victorian London, from the housemaid to the well-heeled neighbors. Margaret’s recent odd behavior seems to have something to do with the Angel Alms Society of Fulham and Putney, where she was a generous donor who served on the advisory board. She was also suing Mrs. Huxton, her next-door neighbor, whom she accused of trying to ruin her reputation. Alibis are tested and possible enemies questioned. The suspects range from that neighbor to Margaret’s deceased niece’s husband to the vicar of St. Andrew’s Church, all of whom have reason to be angry with her. Mrs. Jeffries struggles to get on the right track as other members of the amateur detective group pass information to Witherspoon’s constable, who’s in on their scheme. It all comes down to love or money.
Not exactly groundbreaking, but fans will enjoy this cozy Christmas addition to a long-running series.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-451-49224-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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