The latest case for Bay (The Mercy Oak, 2008, etc.) is tense, introspective and hard to put down.
Private investigator Bay Tanner takes an urgent case that can only be solved by unearthing buried secrets.
Joline Eastman’s daughter Kimmie is dying of leukemia, and so far no bone marrow match has been found. So Joline asks Bay to find some long-estranged family members who might help. For some reason, however, she refuses to talk about Kimmie’s father, who would seem the most likely match, and her current husband is strangely reluctant to have Bay search for other family members. In addition, Bay has her own problems. As her beloved father, retired Judge Talbot Simpson, lies in the hospital with worsening heart problems, she discovers the obituary he wrote for himself. Shockingly, the obituary reveals that Bay has a sister. Her father’s longtime companion Lavinia Smalls is obviously hiding something from Bay, but with Kimmie at death’s door, Bay has to let it go. Luckily, her strained relationship with her brother-in-law Red, who’s also her fiancé, improves when he quits the police force and Bay hires him as an investigator in hope of uncovering some of the many long-hidden secrets of the South Carolina lowlands. While Bay winkles out the relatives she hopes can be a donor for Kimmie, she coincidentally finds the sister she never knew existed, along with a tale of misunderstanding and tragedy.
The latest case for Bay (The Mercy Oak, 2008, etc.) is tense, introspective and hard to put down.Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-37535-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
This ran in the S.E.P. and resulted in more demands for the story in book form than ever recorded. Well, here it is and it is a honey. Imagine ten people, not knowing each other, not knowing why they were invited on a certain island house-party, not knowing their hosts. Then imagine them dead, one by one, until none remained alive, nor any clue to the murderer. Grand suspense, a unique trick, expertly handled.
Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1939
ISBN: 0062073478
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1939
SEEN & HEARD
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