It’s not the fly fishing, but the cast: good guys to root for, villains to hiss. Galligan (The Blood Knot, 2005, etc.) has...
Working in troubled waters, a peripatetic fly fisherman catches murder, romance and the occasional trout.
It’s been four years since Ned Ogilvie could think of himself as the husband, father and businessman he once was. A devastating family tragedy has propelled him into what he regards as an irrevocably altered state: “I am the Dog now. I am a trout hound. I fish, I drive, I fish, I drive, I fish.” Finding himself in picturesque Livingston, Mont., the Dog plans to plant his waders in the nearby Roam River, a fly-fishing Mecca. He’s temporarily sidetracked when Sneed and Jesse, a pair of engaging young lovers, attach themselves to him, making the Dog feel pleasantly avuncular and content just to hang out for a while. But Sneed is black, Jesse is white, and soon Livingston’s hate community takes notice. Jesse is murdered; Sneed is arrested; and the Dog knows the mighty Roam will have to wait longer. His task—to keep Sneed from being railroaded by reeling in the killer—is certainly challenging. But it turns out that the self-proclaimed trout hound has enough bloodhound in him to sniff out the dark stuff homicides are made of.
It’s not the fly fishing, but the cast: good guys to root for, villains to hiss. Galligan (The Blood Knot, 2005, etc.) has the knack.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-60648-003-8
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Bleak House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008
Those not knowing King’s Dark Tower series or The Talisman will follow all this easily enough. Many admiring King’s recent,...
Coauthors King and Straub, together again (The Talisman, 1984), take a Wisconsin Death Trip into parallel universes.
The Fisherman, who copycats long-dead serial killer Albert Fish, has been chopping up little kids in French Landing, Wisconsin, and sending letters to the children’s parents identical to those Fish sent parents 67 years ago—letters never made public, so how does The Fisherman do this? The local police chief asks for help from Jack Sawyer (hero of The Talisman), a Los Angeles homicide detective now in retirement. As a child, Jack flipped into the Territories, the parallel world in The Talisman, but has since forgotten his trip. What about the all-black Black House in the woods? Well, only Charles Burnside (Alzheimer’s) and Tinky Winky Judy Marshall (just plain crazy) know the Black House is the doorway to Abbalah, the entrance to hell—and Judy’s son Tyler is apparently the killer’s fourth victim. Jack’s new buddy, blind Henry Leyden, a radio deejay with four discrete identities no one knows are his, can’t talk Jack into taking the case. But when little Irma Freneau’s gnawed foot arrives in a shoebox on Jack’s welcome mat, Jack flips and lands in the Territories. The Territories confer a sacred magic and, in Jack’s case, absolute luck that lets him win his every bet or endeavor. Tyler, it happens, is telekinetic, and has been abducted by the Crimson King. All universes are held in place by the Dark Tower, the great interdimensional axle the Crimson King wants to destroy. Jack must save Tyler from the furnace-lands below Black House—and here the novel strives for depth, though interest dwindles.
Those not knowing King’s Dark Tower series or The Talisman will follow all this easily enough. Many admiring King’s recent, subtler work, though, may find these blood-spattered pages a step backward into dreamslash & gutspill.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-50439-7
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2001
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SEEN & HEARD
No great shakes as a detective story, but fans needn’t worry: Lupica has Parker’s formula down to a turn.
A second reincarnation for Sunny Randall, the Boston private eye who just can’t seem to walk away from organized crime once and for all.
Prostitution czar Tony Marcus has no reason to trust Sunny, who double-crossed him on a recent deal (Robert B. Parker’s Blood Feud, 2018, etc.) in which he didn’t get the illegal guns she’d promised him for saving the life of Desmond Burke, her ex-husband Richie’s equally mobbed-up father. But she definitely owes Tony one, and he has no hesitation about calling in the marker by asking her to track down Lisa Morneau, who rose through the ranks from sex worker to supervisor to become Tony’s chief operating officer, his second brain, and bedmate. He doesn’t want to make Lisa do anything, he insists; he just wants to talk to her and ask why she left him. Though she’s skeptical about that claim and more generally reluctant to take another dip in Tony’s foul pool, Sunny finds herself drawn to a search for a woman who actually wielded considerable power in the boys-only club of Boston’s crime families. The only problems are that Richie’s more recent ex, Kathryn, has just blown into town with an adorable 6-year-old son who throws Sunny considerably off balance and that agreeing to take on Tony’s job doesn’t get her anywhere. The main response of Tony’s aspiring rival Gabriel Jabari, who runs a place called Suite and wants to run a whole lot more, is to smile evilly and offer to hire Sunny himself. And Callie Harden, the friend and former co-worker of Lisa’s who agrees to meet with Sunny, gets shot to death after revealing very little about the missing woman. Sunny’s convinced that both Tony and Jabari are holding back vital information and lying to her, and she’s right on all counts. Will Lisa Morneau survive long enough for Sunny to put together the pieces?
No great shakes as a detective story, but fans needn’t worry: Lupica has Parker’s formula down to a turn.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53932-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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