bookshelf

The Monteverdi Manuscript

Name: The Monteverdi Manuscript
Author: Joseph Allen
ISBN: 978-1-5390-5168-8

From the A Hugo Miller Mystery series

by Joseph Allen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2016

A whodunit that starts off with an intriguing premise but makes its way to an unsatisfying conclusion.

bookshelf

A mystery novel from Allen (Rocky Point Road, 2016, etc.), set in late-1990s New York City, about the death of a famous harpsichordist.

Hugo Miller is a middle-aged New Yorker who works in public relations, and who’s successful enough to have an apartment right in Times Square. Fred Glamorgan, a music professor at UCLA and an old friend of Hugo’s, comes into town to visit and the two go out for a night at the Metropolitan Opera. Before the show, they visit one of Fred’s friends, the well-known harpsichordist Hubert Fulmer, who offers Hugo a hit of hashish. From there, things get hazy: the hash is spiked, leading to Hugo getting kicked out of the opera for appearing drop-dead drunk, and, more ominously, causing Hubert to jump out of his apartment’s window to his death. Or was he pushed? That’s the mystery that Hugo attempts to solve, driven by the fact that he, too, could’ve easily met the same end. Assisting him in this endeavor are his friend Ruth Jensen and his roommate Carlos, an ex-cop. Mike di Saronno, the detective assigned to the case, is also on hand to give official assistance to the three amateur sleuths. As they start to piece together the events of Hubert’s fatal night, the possible murder seems linked to a lost manuscript of an opera by the 17th-century Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, which may or may not exist, and which Hubert may or may not have had in his possession. More worryingly, Hugo starts noticing that people are following him around the city, suggesting that more sinister forces may be involved in the search. Things get even stranger—and more dangerous—as Hugo investigates further. Allen certainly appears to have a love for Manhattan and its environs, as he adoringly writes of the many buildings and restaurants that his characters visit. Sometimes, though, he gets bogged down in details—recounting exactly what Hugo eats at every stop, for instance, or the many benefits of first-class air travel. Hugo narrates the story in a light, easygoing way, but without much urgency, which deflates the intrigue of the plot; as a result, the stakes never seem to be that high. Hugo’s fluid sexuality—he’s a divorced father who also has an eye for men—is the most engaging part of his character, and the story shows some heart when this element becomes more central to the plot. However, it’s not quite enough to save this meandering mystery.

A whodunit that starts off with an intriguing premise but makes its way to an unsatisfying conclusion.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5390-5168-8

Page Count: 278

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE ALL PAST YEARS ARE
by Joseph Allen

- BOOK REVIEW
ROCKY POINT ROAD
by Joseph Allen

bookshelf

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
EVIL BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
FIRE AND BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
COLD, COLD BONES
by Kathy Reichs

bookshelf

BADLANDS

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...

bookshelf

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.