by John Lawton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2010
Another complex and compellingly readable historic thriller from Lawton, full of profound questions and memorable characters.
Inspector Troy probes a murder with tangled roots in the recently ended Second World War.
The seventh Frederick Troy thriller (Second Violin, 2008, etc.) brings the London DCI in for the second half of the story. London, 1948. Viktor Rosen shares with mentor André Skolnik his intention to leave the Communist Party. André firmly advises that the Party doesn't work that way. Story flashes back to Vienna in 1934, where Viktor, a Jew in exile from Germany, is the mentor of cello prodigy Méret Voytek, just ten years old. His cloudy past is said to have involved an escape from the Nazis. The German war machine is headed east, a reality that Méret's parents try to shield from her. One day, Viktor simply vanishes. Méret joins the Vienna Youth Orchestra and, not long after, the Orchestra becomes an arm of the Hitler Youth. On her 20th birthday, she is taking the train home when she has the bad luck to see her friend Roberto shot by Nazis. In short order, both Méret and fellow musician Magda are arrested and ultimately end up at Auschwitz. Their musical artistry allows them to survive. When Méret pines for her beautiful cello, it's brought to her; she realizes with horror that her parents must be dead. Eventually, Méret and Magda are rescued (though later separated) by Russian soldiers. Méret lands in Paris, where she lives among artists for awhile, until the time comes to repay her rescuers. Most of the first half of the novel deals with Méret, but there's some tracking of Viktor as a spy in London, as well as Hungarian scientist Dr. Karel Szabo, transplanted to New Mexico to help develop the atomic bomb. Days after the prologue meeting between Viktor and André, the latter is found murdered in his art studio and Troy catches the case.
Another complex and compellingly readable historic thriller from Lawton, full of profound questions and memorable characters.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1956-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
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by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
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
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by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
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
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