A fulfilling read for both mystery and chick-lit aficionados.
The new novel by Russell (Deed So, 2010) is the first in a promised mystery series that takes place in the “wacky” world of biotech.
Embezzler Roger Chen did not single-handedly bring down entrepreneur Nola Billingsley’s dot-com business, but he did hasten its demise. Nola hardly wishes him well, but she never wanted to find his dead body in San Francisco’s Fort Funston—especially not with his severed head several feet away. On the bright side, her gruesome discovery brings her in closer contact with investigator Bob Harrison. But it also results in the inevitable clash as she insists on investigating the murder herself. As feisty, intelligent and well-respected Nola works as a consultant in the small world of biotechnology, she learns that Roger had his hands in many pies, or at least the funds of many start-ups. With both her romance with Harrison and her consulting business blossoming, Nola delves deeper into the incestuous world of biotech companies, learning that they are more closely linked than even their CEOs imagined; one hacks into the systems of several competitors. Nola is a fun, honest and intelligent 40-something heroine, with a live-in octogenarian mother and jealous short-haired pointer to keep her from getting bored—and from getting any privacy with her new lover. With just the right mix of action, intrigue, romance and the chick-lit distractions of cocktails, dinners and shopping, the book is a fun, fast-paced read. Russell is a skilled writer who doesn’t give herself enough credit when she calls her book “silly” in the acknowledgements. It may not be great literature, but it is an engrossing, cozy read, reminiscent of the many mysteries featuring spunky female amateur sleuths that the New York houses used to churn out. As proof of Russell’s writing abilities, she makes biotechnology almost comprehensible.
A fulfilling read for both mystery and chick-lit aficionados.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2010
ISBN: 978-1450563093
Page Count: 352
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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