Sandford is as professional as the evildoers aren’t. The result is lots of great setups but remarkably few follow-throughs.
Now that he’s moved on from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to the elite U.S. Marshals Service, you might expect Lucas Davenport (Golden Prey, 2017, etc.) to deal with a distinctly higher class of lowlife. That’s not how it works out.
Minnesota Sen. Porter Smalls insists that the crash that nearly killed him and did kill his unacknowledged lover, Republican fundraiser Cecily Whitehead, was deliberately caused by a Ford F-250 truck that rammed his car and sent it plunging off a cliff. When the West Virginia accident investigator finds no sign of any such impact on his wrecked car, Smalls calls on Lucas to dig up the evidence that he’s not just hallucinating and, ideally, that the crash was engineered by first-term Minnesota Sen. Taryn Grant, a proven sociopath who’d hate him even if she didn’t already have her eyes on the White House. Smalls is right, of course, but making a case against someone as wealthy, ruthless, and well-connected as Grant won’t be easy. While Lucas and fellow marshals Rae Givens and Bob Matees are chasing down leads, Grant, who’s just as clearsighted as Smalls about her enemies, is issuing orders to her fixer, hustler Jack Parrish, about how to take Lucas out: mug him seriously enough to hospitalize him for a crucial month or so, arrange a distraction that will send him back to Minnesota, or, if all else fails, kill him dead. Spoiler alert: Even when they succeed short-term, Grant and her army of minions fail to derail Lucas’ investigation into a particularly nasty episode in which the awarding of a military contract was manipulated to the significant detriment of the military services. The only thing that slows Lucas is the fact that every time he gets enough evidence against one of the underlings, his target is quite properly killed before he can testify against his fellow conspirators.
Sandford is as professional as the evildoers aren’t. The result is lots of great setups but remarkably few follow-throughs.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1735-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.
Thirty years ago, Seattle Police Capt. Edward Shank put down a serial killer dubbed the Butcher. Edward’s bullet ended Rufus Wedge’s sorry life. But did the killings end?
Hillier’s (Freak, 2012, etc.) third thriller fairly shudders with tension. Edward is ready to retire to an assisted living facility and give his grandson, Matt, the family home, a beloved Victorian in a posh neighborhood. An up-and-coming chef, Matt has parlayed his successful food-truck business into Adobo, the hottest restaurant in town, and the reality show networks are calling. The only trouble is that his girlfriend, Samantha, can’t understand why Matt hasn’t invited her to move in, too. After all, they’ve been together for three years. Pressuring Matt, though, isn’t getting her anywhere, and even their friend—well, really Sam’s friend—Jason is a little mystified. Certainly, Matt’s history of anger management trouble gives Jason pause. While Matt renovates the house and works late, Sam turns back to researching her latest true-crime book. This time, she has a personal investment. She’s convinced that her mother was killed by the notorious Butcher. Bored at the retirement home, Edward has become an invaluable sounding board. Like the Butcher’s other victims, Sam’s mother was raped, strangled and left in a shallow grave. Unfortunately for Sam’s theory, her mother was killed two years after Rufus Wedge’s death. Meanwhile, Matt’s contractor has unearthed a crate filled with gruesome artifacts. As Matt investigates the crate’s contents and Sam questions a mysterious informant, their romance unravels and the body count begins to rise. Hillier sends her reader into a labyrinth of creepy twists and grotesque turns. There’s no escape from the brutal truths exposed.
The secrets of the past refuse to keep quiet in this disquieting, taut thriller.Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3421-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Schneider’s debut enlivens the police procedural with offbeat characters and an appealingly complex hero.
Hollywood detectives catch the strange case of a brutally burned body.
Detective Tully Jarsdel is a former academic, leading his partner, Morales, to call him Professor. When he fights his way through multiple news crews to reach a corpse one day, it's unlike any he’s ever seen. The body is twisted, partially ravaged, and burned so badly it’s unrecognizable. Jarsdel and Morales intensely question Dustin Sparks, the horror-movie special-effects expert who found the body. He eventually admits that he saw the body being dumped from a van, but his addiction to OxyContin makes him a compromised witness. While waiting for DNA results, Jarsdel and Morales watch missing persons reports closely. An odd red disk glued to the victim’s palm turns out to be a 1996 quarter painted red: the case’s first clue, albeit a murky one. DNA connects the victim to grizzled convict Lawrence Wolin, who identifies the man as his brother. The pieces of Grant Wolin’s life come together via interviews prompted by a search of his dirty apartment. He sold jars of “genuine Hollywood dirt” on the street, smoked marijuana occasionally, and was apparently asexual. A dinner scene at the home of Jarsdel’s scholarly parents provides insight into his psyche and his sense of isolation. Though he fits in with neither the gritty world of police work nor the ivory tower of academia, he has a passion for justice.
Schneider’s debut enlivens the police procedural with offbeat characters and an appealingly complex hero.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8444-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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