An engaging crime tale with four appealing sleuths.
This third installment of a series offers a mystery that resembles a game of Clue and relies strongly on cryptology—and a veritable school of red herrings.
Clarence Tyme, head of the library at Bellevue University, has been found dead after a fire. Accidental, say the police—but was it in fact murder? Precocious 10-year-old Irene “Reen” Penterson, who calls herself an investigative reporter, and her 9-year-old cousin, Joanie, don’t think Tyme’s death was an accident. Neither do two adults who happen to be amateur sleuths—Kathryn Frasier and her sister, Cece Goldman—after listening to the doubts of the Rev. Jim Whitefield. It all has to do with very cryptic messages left in the university chapel’s prayer box, short notes that quote Scripture and end with the admonition “God Remembers.” So the game is afoot. Who has a motive, and what secrets are hidden? Many faculty members are suspected. Also notable is that the ill-regarded head of the computer science department was run off the road on his bicycle and very seriously injured. Is there a pattern here? If this book has a target audience, it might be Christian cryptologists. Code-breaking has a lot to do with the story, and the tale is decidedly in favor of religion. In one scene, a nasty faculty member argues from what is clearly the position of a hubristic, agnostic academic, and readers will know what side they are supposed to root for—just one instance of heavy-handed preaching. Still, DiBianca’s motif of time, clocks, and watches—evident in her previous novels—is a superb gimmick, and the idea of two teams of smart female detectives working almost in parallel is equally clever. But many questions remain. For example, is the very qualified (and angry) professor Andrew Bellinger being denied tenure just so that he might be a suspect? And does he really think that an instance of cheating back when he was an undergraduate might get him fired? Bellinger is the most notable example of a red herring.
An engaging crime tale with four appealing sleuths.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73578-882-1
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Wordstar Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If you love good crime writing but aren’t familiar with Winslow’s work, read this trilogy in order.
The dramatic conclusion to the trilogy about two New England crime families begun in City on Fire (2022) and City of Dreams (2023).
Near the end of his journey, multimillionaire Danny Ryan watches a casino implode in a mushroom cloud of dust and muses about his life’s implosions: “The cancer that killed his wife, the depression that destroyed his love, the moral rot that took his soul.” Danny is from Providence, Rhode Island, and desperately tried to leave his criminal life behind him. But using a ton of ill-gotten gains, he invests heavily in Las Vegas properties. Congress is conducting an investigation into gambling that could destroy his casino business and even land him in jail. An FBI agent plans to take Danny down for major sins he’d like to repent for. Meanwhile, can he make peace with his enemies? Nope, doesn’t look like it. Even if the parties involved want to put the past behind them, the trouble is that they don’t trust each other. Is Vern Winegard setting Dan up? Is Dan setting Vern up? “Trust? Trust is children waiting for Santa Claus.” So what could have been a “Kumbaya,” nobody-wants-to-read-this story turns into a grisly bloodletting filled with language that would set Sister Mary Margaret’s wimple on fire—figuratively speaking, as she’s not in the book. But the Catholic reference is appropriate: Two of the many colorful characters of ill repute are known as the Altar Boys, serving “Last Communion” to their victims. On the law-abiding side and out of the line of fire is an ex-nun-turned-prosecutor nicknamed Attila the Nun, who’s determined to bring justice for a gory matricide. (Rhode Island really had such a person, by the way.) Finally, the prose is just fun: A friend warns Dan about Allie Licata: “In a world of sick fucks, even the sick fucks think Licata’s a sick fuck.” A couple of things to note: This not only ends the trilogy, but it also closes out the author’s career, as he has said he’ll write no more novels.
If you love good crime writing but aren’t familiar with Winslow’s work, read this trilogy in order.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780063079472
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PROFILES
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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