A superb cast spearheads the story of an incendiary social and environmental issue.
This third installment of a legal thriller series finds environmental lawyer Mike Jacobs embroiled in romance, possible murder, and fracking contamination.
Things are definitely brewing in Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Yukon Oil and Gas Co. is there, using controversial fracking to drill on private properties. Hefty payments allay the potential concerns of landowners, except for one woman who thinks the fracking has contaminated her family’s water. She takes her allegations to the Department of Environmental Protection, and assistant counsel Mike gets the case. There’s no question the water is chemically tainted; the issue is whether Yukon’s freshwater pit has somehow leaked contaminated fracking water. As citizens actively protest the fracking, Mike works with geologist Missy Shelton. Their unexpected romance sparks a complication with Missy’s ex, who has a hot temper and a gun rack in his pickup. In a concurrent plot, local police search for missing Chris Corsica, a contractor whose company Yukon has outsourced drilling to. But if Corsica has met with foul play, who’s the armed, military-trained man lurking in the woods and eyeing a certain household? All these motley incidents come to a head in a startling confrontation. Burcat, who wrote Amid Rage (2021), rarely takes this legal tale into a courtroom. But the author, as in earlier Mike Jacobs novels, excels at involving his characters in myriad subplots. Even before a deposition, for example, Mike faces off against attorney Darius Moore, his rival since law school, whose firm represents Yukon. The plot is sometimes stagnant, with frequent discussions on the freshwater pit and with the missing person investigation making little progress. Suspense nevertheless abounds courtesy of the tenacious presence of the stranger in the woods and Missy’s volatile ex-boyfriend. While the legal system takes a back seat, Burcat dishes out fracking details that will astonish and educate many readers, such as the part that fresh water plays in the process.
A superb cast spearheads the story of an incendiary social and environmental issue.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-951556-80-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Headline Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.
Two ambitious athletes plus one fake-dating arrangement—what could go wrong?
Though it’s only his first season for the Boston Bearcats hockey team, Robbie Corrigan has a well-established reputation as a playboy. He’s got major skills on the ice, and he’s also much more likely to love ’em and leave ’em than he is to build any long, meaningful relationships. Naturally, he’s just met the one woman who seems completely resistant to his charm: Skylar Page, a Boston University softball pitcher. When they meet over a friendly Saturday morning baseball game, Robbie instantly makes a poor impression by bragging to his teammates about his latest conquest within Skylar’s hearing. He thinks she’s gorgeous, though, and when he sets his sights on her, he’s surprised that she doesn’t seem to know it. Despite her initial distaste for Robbie, Skylar grudgingly confesses that she could use his help. If they pretend to date, maybe her current crush—her brother’s best friend—will finally sit up and take notice of her in a romantic way. The timing is less than ideal, since Robbie will have to team up with Skylar in the Page family’s latest wilderness competition, but it turns out that Robbie’s willingness to play fake boyfriend stems from some very real feelings. He wants to prove to her that he’s a changed man, and redeeming himself in her eyes starts with making sure she knows that she can really trust him. The latest addition to Bailey’s Big Shots series is a sexy, feel-good romance brimming over with the author’s trademark humor and dirty talk. While Skylar and Robbie’s dynamic doesn’t quite reach the level of enemies-to-lovers—he’s so head-over-heels for her that there’s no room for any real mean-spiritedness—their playful snark doubles as a welcome dash of foreplay in the lead-up to some seriously steamy scenes. Robbie’s efforts to show Skylar that he’s turned over a new leaf also result in some of the book’s best moments, emphasizing his commitment to becoming the type of man he knows she deserves.
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780063380837
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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