Though it lacks both the sociological scope and the double-barreled plotting of Lescroart’s best, this relatively routine,...
Back in the saddle after a brief hiatus for the stand-alone Fatal (2017), San Francisco attorney Dismas Hardy spends most of his time wishing he weren’t. And he’s not the only one.
Half a generation ago, Hardy represented Abby Jarvis when her drunken driving got her charged with vehicular homicide. She did her time, got out of prison, and landed a job as bookkeeper with Grant Wagner, who owned Pipes & Valves plumbing supply. Now Wagner has died, and the cause wasn’t the heart attack it first seemed to his family—sons Gary and Gene, daughters Grace and Gloria—but aconite poisoning, which a tox screen Gloria requested finally caught. The younger Wagners can’t believe Abby could have killed the man who gave her a second chance, but neither can they believe the killer is one of their number, and somebody has to take the rap. So Abby once more calls Hardy, who takes the case for peanuts and then watches the pile of evidence against his client grow and grow. The defense’s only hope, it seems, is that the case will somehow turn out to be linked to the shooting of David Chang that leads off the story but feels like an extra limb. And eventually it is, though not in an especially ingenious or revealing or persuasive way. By that time, though, Hardy’s own son Vincent’s friendship with Chang has Hardy’s wife, Frannie, demanding that her husband walk away from the case, and when he thinks back over the times his friends and relatives have been scalded by the violent crimes he deals with (The Fall, 2015, etc.), he can see that she has a point. Now if only there were a way to get Abby off before the deadline for Hardy’s decision came due….
Though it lacks both the sociological scope and the double-barreled plotting of Lescroart’s best, this relatively routine, expertly handled case is still well worth your time.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1570-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
Part budding romance, part compelling backstory, part prescient tale of racism: provocative on all fronts without being...
In the wake of family tragedy, does an oldest sister’s disappearance point to something even more nefarious?
As a child in Bartonville, Oregon, Emily Mills saw something terrible that she hasn’t been able to forget for 20 years. Even worse than seeing the body of her father, who was white, hanging from a tree in the backyard was seeing her older sister, Tara, at the scene of the crime. Tara leaves town and isn’t heard from again, so Emily can’t ask what she was doing there the fateful night their father was murdered. When their mother takes her own life shortly afterward, Emily and her youngest sister, Madison, never recover from the multiple traumas. Although they do their best to go on running Barton Diner, the family restaurant, Emily fears that her questions may never be answered. Though Chet Carlson was caught and eventually confessed to the crime, he’s still in prison when history seems to repeat itself through a double murder of interracial couple Sean and Lindsay Fitch, with Emily once again cast as the person who finds the bodies. Sean has a KKK sign carved into his head, which reminds Emily of whisperings about her father's racist connections. How else might the crimes be related? Rightfully not trusting the police to do a thorough investigation, Emily calls the FBI, which dispatches agents Zander Wells and Ava McLane to investigate. Elliot (Bred in the Bone, 2019) seems less interested in setting Emily up as part of the crime than in pairing her romantically with Zander. That’s just as well, because the who and why of the crimes feels almost incidental rather than displaying a deeper connection to any larger theme.
Part budding romance, part compelling backstory, part prescient tale of racism: provocative on all fronts without being quite satisfying on any.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0672-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Be warned: It's a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.
Amy Whey’s sins come back to haunt her when she’s extorted for money by a beautiful stranger in Jackson’s (The Almost Sisters, 2017, etc.) first thriller.
It was supposed to be book club as usual: a group of suburban mothers gathering to talk over a glass of wine or two and then going home to bed. But when new neighbor Angelica Roux shows up at hostess Amy’s door, it doesn’t take long for all hell to break loose. The booze flows freely, and soon the women are engaged in a game: What is the worst thing you did today? This week? This month? In your life? There are many women in the gathering with secrets to protect, but none more than Amy, who, as a teenager, committed a terrible crime that almost destroyed her. Saved by her love for diving, and then by meeting her husband and stepdaughter, Amy has worked hard to build a normal, stable life; she even has a new baby. Angelica has come to threaten all of this; she clearly knows about Amy’s past and will expose her to her loved ones if Amy doesn’t pay her. As Amy tries desperately to outscheme Angelica, she also realizes just how much she has to fight for—and what she might be willing to do to keep her family safe and her secrets buried. Jackson’s novel is chock-full of dramatic reveals and twisty turns, but she paces them out well, dropping them like regularly spaced bombshells. Just when the reader thinks they know what might lie at the heart of the novel, the ground shifts seismically, and the truth removes again to a distance. It’s skillfully done. Amy herself is an openly flawed and relatable character fighting to keep sacred the one thing she values most: her normal, loving, messy life.
Be warned: It's a stay-up-all-night kind of book. Compulsively readable.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-285531-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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