In a break from his highly regarded John Cuddy series (The Only Good Lawyer, 1998, etc.), Healy makes his legal-eagle heroine more victim than detective. Nobody works harder than attorney Sheilah Quinn, and for what? Her father, confined to a nursing home, can barely recognize her half the time; she has to keep her steamy romance a dark secret; the Hon. Roger Hesterfield, presiding over her current trial, is ruling favorably on her procedural motions only so that he can hit on her after adjournment; opposing counsel is hungry for a conviction to launch his candidacy for state Attorney General; and her client, Arthur Ketterson IV, accused of strangling Jessica Giordano with her brassiere, fantasizes day and night about disposing of Sheilah in the same way. When a hung jury sets Ketterson free on bail to return to his estate, his faithful retainer, and his wine cellar (all of which seem to have tumbled out of a time warp), his good fortune is Sheilah’s bad, since Rudolph Giordano, the bereaved father who’s won the contract to demolish the Judge Hesterfield’s old courthouse, is driven to a frenzy, and the client’s new freedom doesn’t bode well for his counsel, especially after he starts to sharpen his claws on her nearest and dearest. All this may sound like Friday the 13th with lawyers instead of campers, but Healy can’t keep the line taut enough for successful pulp. His idea of menace is to show Ketterson savoring his Napoleon brandy, and the constant cutting back and forth from scene to scene comes across as a nervous twitch that makes you feel sorrier for the author than for his threatened characters. The macabre, unconvincing finale is one last embarrassment for all concerned, including the persistent reader. A waste of Healy’s talent likely to appeal only to hardcore lawyer-haters.
Pub Date: July 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-18667-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
Even when she’s in pantyhose, Hannah’s grit and quick thinking once more save the day.
All of Lake Eden is agog when the police chief’s secretary takes a tumble from the penthouse of a condo complex.
Fabulously wealthy Roger Dalworth has pulled out all the stops for the grand reopening of the Albion Hotel, his new luxury condo project. A caterer from Minneapolis! Red Velvet Surprise Cupcakes from The Cookie Jar for dessert! The evening is so grand that The Cookie Jar’s owner, Hannah Swensen (Cinnamon Roll Murder, 2012, etc.), in eye makeup and pantyhose, decides to tour the Albion’s posh penthouse, complete with its outdoor garden. Hannah is luckier than Barbara Donnelly, whose own tour of the penthouse ends in a headfirst plunge to the parking lot. Barbara survives, much addled, leaving amateur sleuth Hannah to decode her ramblings about her brother (Barbara is an only child) and a furry white monster that lurks in her hospital room. Hannah soon has her own worries. She finds Dr. Bev Thorndike, her former rival for local dentist Norman Rhodes’ affections, in her red Maserati at the bottom of Miller’s Pond. Even though Dr. Bev has recently become engaged to Roger, her death puts Hannah very much on Detective Mike Kingston’s radar screen. Can Hannah find the real culprit before Mike ends the discussion of whether he or Norman will be the one to wrestle her to the altar by putting her in the slammer instead?
Even when she’s in pantyhose, Hannah’s grit and quick thinking once more save the day.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7582-8034-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Her zany cast will have readers wondering whether DiRico’s series debut is set in Belle View or Bellevue.
Murder crashes the party.
Mia Carina would like nothing better than to see her dad, Ravello, a made man in Donny Boldano’s mob, go straight. When she hears he’s won the Belle View Banquet Manor from hard-luck gambler Andre Bouras in a poker game, she rushes back from Palm Beach to help him run the place, hoping it will provide her dad with enough legitimate income to allow him to cut his ties with the underworld. Despite its dated décor and bone-shaking proximity to LaGuardia Airport, the catering hall has panoramic views out its windows that make it a worthy rival to the overpriced event venues in Manhattan—which Mia’s outer-borough friends drive her nuts by calling “the city.” (“Queens is the city” is her perennial retort.) And she proves her borough cred by moving in with her nonna in Astoria. But running a catering hall involves more than dealing with bridezillas like Alice Paluski, who’s determined to make her wedding bigger and better than her twin sister’s, or with momzillas like Barbara Grazio, Alice’s prospective mother-in-law, who’s determined to make the groom’s side of the wedding outshine the bride’s. She has to wrangle an ever changing cast of chefs, sous-chefs, waitstaff, decorators, DJs, and the occasional stripper, who all bring a host of quirks and baggage to the banquet table. She also has to deal with more than one corpse. It takes all of Mia’s considerable ingenuity to keep Ravello’s first legit enterprise from becoming a ticket right back to the slammer.
Her zany cast will have readers wondering whether DiRico’s series debut is set in Belle View or Bellevue.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2534-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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