Another potent, vigorously written entry in a series that continues to keep mystery fans rapt.
In this fifth installment of a mystery series, a resilient Houston orthopedist and amateur gumshoe returns to solve another complex case.
In this volume, author/orthopedist Bishop departs from his typical formula to more intensively incorporate several of Dr. Jim Bob “Doc” Brady’s family members in a new investigation. Previous volumes like Act of Negligence (2021) have featured the good doctor’s longtime wife of nearly three decades, Mary Louise, as a solid foundation of love and support. This time, she is fully embroiled in a scandal that puts her life in serious jeopardy. As typical for a Brady mystery, there are many moving parts successfully suspended in motion. This one kicks off with the coldblooded murder of Meredith Brown James, whose marriage to neurosurgeon Dr. Frank James has seen better days. She is slain while planning a romantic reconciliatory dinner that she hopes will revive their relationship. Meredith’s father, distinguished Houston philanthropist and cancer survivor Melvin Brown, also happens to be Doc’s patient. At the time of her murder, the physician was about to perform knee replacement surgery, his specialty, on Melvin. Further tragedy ensues when Doc learns that Mary Louise has been seriously injured in an automobile accident. Suffering massive cranial and skeletal trauma, she lies in a coma. Desperate to save her life, Doc appeals to Frank James, one of his close colleagues, to tend to Mary Louise. But the “ladies’ man” has bigger problems to deal with, as his wife’s murder has taken on a life of its own with many serpentine detours and suspects galore (himself included). The cutthroat killer shot a newly pregnant Meredith with two bullets, one to the forehead and the other inexplicably through the fifth rib into her heart. With Frank emotionally and physically unavailable to medically treat Mary Louise, Doc turns to physician George Flanagan, an instantly unlikable man “with the bedside manner of a roach.”
As usual in Bishop’s energetic series, Doc is pulled in many different directions. Here, he works with police detectives to uncover Meredith’s murderer and find the driver responsible for Mary Louise’s injuries. But he has found help this time, enlisting his adult son, J.J., and his investigative firm to assist in sleuthing the case details. As the author’s sturdy puzzler plays out, so does a nefarious plot that readers will devilishly enjoy. By placing Mary Louise’s life on the line, the story creates a particular urgency to uncover the killer and solve the mystery, and this aspect infuses a good amount of suspense into the novel. Despite the somewhat tidy ending, this new adventure ultimately lives up to the Brady series standards, as does Bishop’s vivid clinical settings and descriptions. Prolific to a fault, the author includes a teaser chapter of the next volume after a fitting epilogue. With no end in sight, the fierce and fearless Doc will continue his fight for Texas justice as the thrilling tales keep on coming. Fans of interwoven family dramas and mysteries will especially enjoy this installment.
Another potent, vigorously written entry in a series that continues to keep mystery fans rapt.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-9861596-1-4
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Mantid Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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