Follows the formula, but the formula’s still fun!
Dallas police detective Betty Rhyzyk is back, more determined than ever to end her nemesis Evangeline Roy’s drug empire.
Betty and her wife, Jackie, are getting used to a new routine, as Mary Grace, the girl they rescued from the streets, and her baby, Elizabeth, have been living with them for seven months. Betty’s daily runs now include a jogging stroller—which is more change than she would like, if she’s honest with herself. Then Mary Grace disappears and her stepfather contacts Betty, looking to take custody of Elizabeth. Work offers little relief from domestic stress; recently promoted to detective sergeant, Betty is informed by Sinaloa cartel enforcer El Cuchillo that her old enemy Evangeline Roy has brought her drug empire back to Texas. Roy—cult leader, drug kingpin, and psychopath—had previously imprisoned Betty, and the resulting rescue mission led to the deaths of Roy's sons. Now she’s gunning for Betty and intends to have some fun while destroying her, setting her people loose in Dallas dressed in red wigs. El Cuchillo needs help getting rid of the competition and gives Betty an ultimatum: “Capture or kill” Roy in two weeks or he will make her life a living hell. Caught in the maelstrom between these two homicidal villains, Betty must rely on her partner, Seth Dutton, as well as Peg Bartles and Rocky Bentner, an eccentric pair of private investigators, to find Mary Grace and protect Elizabeth, to discover the whereabouts of Evangeline Roy, and to prevent El Cuchillo from following through on his threats. She also gets some unexpected help from her Uncle Benny; his voice in Betty’s head offers her solace and guidance as several flashbacks reveal more about Betty’s past relationships with her parents, her brother, and her uncle. Strong women, sharp dialogue, and a vulnerable, kick-ass heroine combine for another satisfying adventure.
Follows the formula, but the formula’s still fun!Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-31628-045-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Another gem from Lippman, with a heroine who elevates being ordinary to an art form.
An ordinary woman finds extraordinary adventures on a river cruise on the Seine.
Muriel Blossom acknowledges that she’s a “no-frills” person, a trait that served her well when doing surveillance for Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan. When she gets an unexpected upgrade on her British Airways flight to Paris, she finds herself not only in business class, but on the other side of the looking glass. Allan Turner, a handsome stranger, befriends her in the Chesapeake Lounge, which her upgrade allows her to access. She misses her connection at Heathrow because of the weather, so he invites her to share his luxurious suite in a London hotel, paid for, he insists, by his firm. Then he sends her off on the Eurostar train to reach Paris via the Chunnel in time for her ship’s departure. Once in Paris, she meets another stranger, younger but equally attentive. Danny Johnson takes her to a friend’s atelier in the Marais where the plus-sized Muriel can find the fashionable clothing she deserves. A mysterious man in a bellman uniform knocks on her hotel-room door and invites her to leave her luggage in the hallway so it can be transferred overnight to her ship, but of course she realizes that’s nonsense. She also receives the news that Allan died in a fall from his balcony the night after she left London. When Danny turns up on her cruise, she knows something’s off, but she can’t put together the pieces. That’s because Lippman is unrivaled in her ability to lay out clues in a way that makes them seem not only mysterious, but downright surreal. Only at the end does everything fit together so naturally that it all seems blazingly obvious. Like Muriel, who’s patient and sensible to the end, you’ll just have to wait.
Another gem from Lippman, with a heroine who elevates being ordinary to an art form.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9780062998101
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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