Although not as spectacular as his debut, the hero’s first outing as a full-fledged constable offers more than its share of...
Teddy Creque (Sun, Sand, Murder, 2015) continues his Caribbean crime-fighting career by investigating the death of a doctor on Virgin Gorda.
It’s his fishing prowess, not his police valor, that persuades Royal Virgin Islands Police Force deputy commissioner Howard Lane to detail Teddy to Virgin Gorda to dispatch Dr. Michele Konnerth’s killer, a 100-plus-pound bull shark. But now that Teddy’s been promoted to constable and awarded the Queen’s Police Medal to boot, Lane is more inclined to listen to his subordinate’s concerns. So when Teddy offers the opinion that the shark had a human accomplice, the deputy commissioner gives Teddy a week away from his post on tiny Anegada to investigate what may or may not be a crime. It takes Virgin Gorda’s “belongers” a little time to warm to Teddy, but soon he and his Anegadian pal Anthony Wedderburn are supping on Mrs. Scatliffe’s excellent fish stew alongside Constable Tybee George and Station Sgt. Isaac Chalwell at the Virgin Gorda nick. Young Jemmy Jim Trengrouse is a different story. Unlike his garrulous parrot, Sir Winston Churchill, who greets Teddy with a raucous “It de fuzz,” and “Hide de kali,” the atypical 8-year-old offers only a few words a day, taking a walk each morning and spending the rest of the day sequestered in his room creating elaborate Lego replicas of famous landmarks. Getting Jemmy to warm to him is a matter of some urgency to Teddy, who’s convinced the boy has seen something on one of his morning rambles that will help solve the Konnerth murder. The slow progress of Teddy’s relationship with Jemmy and his quicker-paced courtship of Jemmy’s mother, Jeanne, are among the pleasures of Keyse-Walker’s second Caribbean excursion.
Although not as spectacular as his debut, the hero’s first outing as a full-fledged constable offers more than its share of adventure.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-14847-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
