by J.M. Harvey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 2015
Features blistering gun battles and a veritable heap of plot twists.
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In Harvey’s (Dead on the Vine, 2014) thriller, police suspect a former Texas cop of murder, and everyone thinks he’s stashed and stolen $15 million in loot.
Valentine Justice nearly died four years ago in a gunfight against criminal brothers Lamar and Lemuel Sutton. The Suttons weren’t so lucky, and Internal Affairs forced Val into retirement, lest he face murder charges. Val vehemently denied shooting and crippling little sis Abby Sutton in the same shootout, but when she turns up dead in the present day, he becomes the primary suspect in her murder. Abby, however, had told her dad, con man/preacher Garland, that Val knew where her brothers’ pilfered fortune was, and now cops and criminals alike are after the $15 million in cash and gold. Val and his lawyer wife, Victoria, are desperate to keep themselves and their twin sons safe. Harvey loads his novel with action and mystery from start to finish. Dubious goings-on ignite almost immediately: Victoria surmises that the sheriff’s Special Tactics Unit might have offed Abby because she was witness to the STU killing a member of the motorcycle club she headed. And when Dallas police go to arrest Abby’s boyfriend, Axel, he claims “some cop” called him to warn him that the DPD was on its way. Harvey wisely holds off the flashback to Val’s shooting until late in the story; by that point, readers will almost certainly doubt the protagonist and be itching for the narrative to either confirm or debunk the belief that Val’s a murderer, thief, or both. Even Victoria is unsure of her husband’s culpability and, in one of the best moments, ends a voice mail with a blunt “Don’t kill anyone.” Nevertheless, the couple’s bond is undeniably strong, and they’re both formidable individually as well, whether they’re armed or simply using judo-trained hands. The final act is astounding, with most characters focused on the $15 million and prepared to do whatever it takes to get their hands on it, including a dangerous double cross. It’s bloody, to be sure, but also intense and filled with a few surprises that readers aren’t likely to forget.
Features blistering gun battles and a veritable heap of plot twists.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1505382495
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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