The latest entry in the Rapid Reads series is a neat little mystery Reynolds (Beach Strip, 2012) and his intrepid heroine...
A small-town police chief is determined to solve a murder without help from the big boys.
Maxine “Max” Benson came from the Toronto police to become chief in the small town of Port Ainslie, where she runs a three-person department with few problems, until the town bad boy is found shot to death. Billy Ray Edwards had long survived minor scrapes, gone through two wives, and become probably the most hated man in town for refusing to sell his beachfront property to a group of developers who planned to build a big resort that would benefit not just the other landowners who sold their parcels, but almost everyone else in the area by promising plenty of new jobs and an influx of tourists willing to spend money. Now that Billy Ray’s been shot sitting in his garage, suspects abound, from his ex-wives to other landowners and local businessmen. Max is certain that her local knowledge and the street smarts she learned in her big-city job will help her solve the crime—if only she can close the case before it’s taken away from her.
The latest entry in the Rapid Reads series is a neat little mystery Reynolds (Beach Strip, 2012) and his intrepid heroine wrap up within a single day.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1059-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Raven Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Despite Gardner’s considerable research into the foster-care system, her plot is a tired one populated with cardboard...
The execution-style murders of a family and the disappearance of their eldest daughter once again bring together a seasoned homicide detective and a kidnap victim–turned-vigilante to find the killer.
In the Boston suburb of Brighton, it’s Detective D.D. Warren’s (Find Her, 2016, etc.) least favorite kind of crime: the slaughter of a family. Juanita Baez, her boyfriend, Charlie Boyd, her 13-year-old daughter, Lola, and her 9-year-old son, Manny, are all dead, shot to death in their home. Conspicuously absent are 16-year-old Roxanna Baez and the family’s two elderly dogs. Warren and her team weigh the possibility that Roxy was abducted or the more chilling one: that she murdered her family. Turns out Juanita wasn’t always a perfect mother; the state removed her children five years earlier due to her drinking, placing the girls in the almost Dickensian Mother Del’s foster home, where all manner of abuse went on under the radar. In a rare instance of family reunification, Juanita regained custody, but the girls’ time in foster care changed them. In an awkwardly patched-in subplot, another Gardner regular, kidnap survivor Flora Dane, who now runs a support/empowerment group of sorts for women who’ve lived through similar trauma, realizes Roxy approached her group before disappearing, making Flora determined to find her before the police do. She and D.D. enter an uneasy, and entirely preposterous, partnership, each exploring her own leads in a case that, while tragic, becomes more predictable with each supposed wrinkle and stereotypical villain.
Despite Gardner’s considerable research into the foster-care system, her plot is a tired one populated with cardboard characters and twists any savvy reader will see coming a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4205-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
An appealing new heroine, a fast-moving plot, and a memorably nightmarish family make this one of Box’s best.
The creator of Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett (Wolf Pack, 2019, etc.) launches a new series starring a female private eye who messes with a powerful family and makes everyone involved rue the day.
Cassie Dewell’s been taking a monthly retainer from Bozeman attorney Rachel Mitchell for investigations of one sort and another, but she really doesn’t want to look into the case of Rachel’s newest client. That’s partly because Blake Kleinsasser, the fourth-generation firstborn of a well-established ranching family who moved to New York and made his own bundle before returning back home, comes across as a repellent jerk and partly because all the evidence indicates that he raped Franny Porché, his 15-year-old niece. And there’s plenty of evidence, from a rape kit showing his DNA to a lengthy, plausible statement from Franny. But Cassie owes Rachel, and Rachel tells her she doesn’t have to dig up exculpatory evidence, just follow the trail where it leads so that she can close off every other possibility. So Cassie agrees even though there’s an even more compelling reason not to: The Kleinsassers—Horst II and Margaret and their three other children, John Wayne, Rand, and Cheyenne, Franny’s thrice-divorced mother—are not only toxic, but viperishly dangerous to Blake and now Cassie. Everyone in Lochsa County, from Sheriff Ben Wagy on down, is in their pockets, and everyone Cassie talks to, from the Kleinsassers to the local law, finds new ways to make her life miserable. But Cassie, an ex-cop single mother, isn’t one to back down, especially since she wonders why anyone would take all the trouble to stop an investigation of a case that was as rock-solid as this one’s supposed to be.
An appealing new heroine, a fast-moving plot, and a memorably nightmarish family make this one of Box’s best.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-05105-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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