An engaging legal tale with plenty of action, suspense, and courtroom flair.
A United States attorney leads a task force targeting an international human trafficking ring in this third installment of a thriller series.
Nick Drummond’s Money Laundering Task Force now has its first human trafficking case. A 17-year-old Nepali girl has escaped captivity from a trafficking ring centered in Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California. She provides details on numerous individuals involved, most notably two Americans known as Mister Steve and Mister Rick. These men are linked to a private corporation that owns spas and hotels in the U.S. and other countries. At these businesses are youngsters from places like Nepal and Tanzania forced into sex work or severely underpaid for manual labor. The task force, which includes government agents, gathers intelligence so that Nick can take the fight to court, beginning with a grand jury hearing. Making charges stick will entail someone wearing a wire and facing a culprit with a reputation for violence. Nick hopes to put a lot of people away, even if everyone pleads to a deal. But the attorney himself may be looking to make reparations—he’s still burdened by guilt over a crime he committed years ago. Like preceding series entries, this volume moves at a steady clip. Task force members sometimes find themselves in dangerous circumstances (for example, up against a hidden shooter). Nick utilizes the legal system with skill and promptness: overseeing testimonies, discovery, and motions. With his pithy writing, Dutton distinctly establishes scenes and new characters. In the case of villains Steve and Rick, they seem like typical adventure-seeking men, but the few overt signs of their depravity make them truly horrifying. The story caters to new readers joining the series, but it’s especially edifying for returning fans, who will recognize several characters and subplots. The enjoyable novel ends on a sharp and unexpected note.
An engaging legal tale with plenty of action, suspense, and courtroom flair.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett has been shot plenty of times before. But this time may be the last.
As Joe hovers between life and death in a Billings hospital, Box indicates that Dorn Peddy and James Dale O’Bryan are the two men who ambushed him, shot him, and left him for dead. But he doesn’t reveal who hired them or why. That’s left up to Joe’s three daughters: bird-abatement firm chief executive Sheridan, Bozeman private eye April, and University of Wyoming undergrad Lucy. Since the man who reported the incident to the Twelve Sleep County Sheriff’s Department has disappeared, the most that newly appointed Sheriff Steve Sondergard can do is to warn Sheridan and her sisters away from the case. But the fact that both the shooters and the witness seem to have come from one of exactly three places presents an obvious appeal to the younger Picketts, who plan to each visit one place and question the owners simultaneously before they can warn each other that anyone’s coming. The only problem is that all the possible suspects—billionaire Michael Thompson and his wife, Brandy, of the Double Diamond Ranch; ranchers John and Shelby Bucholz, of the Bucholz Cattle Company; and secretive sisters Lisa and Lainie McElwee, of McElwee Land and Cattle Ranch—act equally guilty. As Box unspools a series of flashbacks showing what Joe was up to in the weeks before the ambush, one question assumes paramount importance: Can Joe’s daughters identify which of them is behind the plot to murder their father before the hired gunmen visit the hospital and try again?
More than any of his earlier cases, the comatose hero’s 26th adventure bears the hallmarks of a formal detective story.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2026
ISBN: 9780593851098
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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