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BRUSHBACK

Bobby Blasco was a star athlete in high school and went on to still greater success in pro baseball—even had a brief but remarkable stint in the majors—but he never had so many fans as now, when he's been found in an alley with his head bashed in by a Ted Williamsmodel Louisville Slugger. Bobby's latest girlfriend, Elaine Donatello, whose Protection From Abuse order against him had only goaded him to new heights of crass ingenuity, will finally be able to sleep through the night; so will his two ex-wives, who'd gotten PFA's of their own without having much protection to show for it. Even his former catcher, Rocksburg Gazette reporter Joe Barone, is eager to tell Acting Police Chief Rugs Carlucci what a monster Bobby B was. With the town practically ready to schedule a parade in lieu of Bobby's obsequies, there's no great urgency about tracking down his killer, and Carlucci can turn his attention to the really important things—like whether blandly scheming mayor Angelo Bellotti will ever appoint a new police chief, and whether Carlucci's demented mother will ever get off his case, and whether he'll ever find true love. Fans of Constantine's long-running Rocksburg saga (Family Values, 1997, etc.) will be pleased to see that even in this lesser entry, Carlucci not only solves the homicide—courtesy of an attorney who obligingly confesses on behalf of his client—but makes progress on those larger problems too.

Pub Date: March 12, 1998

ISBN: 0-89296-646-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998

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THE BITTERROOTS

An appealing new heroine, a fast-moving plot, and a memorably nightmarish family make this one of Box’s best.

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The creator of Wyoming Fish and Game Warden Joe Pickett (Wolf Pack, 2019, etc.) launches a new series starring a female private eye who messes with a powerful family and makes everyone involved rue the day.

Cassie Dewell’s been taking a monthly retainer from Bozeman attorney Rachel Mitchell for investigations of one sort and another, but she really doesn’t want to look into the case of Rachel’s newest client. That’s partly because Blake Kleinsasser, the fourth-generation firstborn of a well-established ranching family who moved to New York and made his own bundle before returning back home, comes across as a repellent jerk and partly because all the evidence indicates that he raped Franny Porché, his 15-year-old niece. And there’s plenty of evidence, from a rape kit showing his DNA to a lengthy, plausible statement from Franny. But Cassie owes Rachel, and Rachel tells her she doesn’t have to dig up exculpatory evidence, just follow the trail where it leads so that she can close off every other possibility. So Cassie agrees even though there’s an even more compelling reason not to: The Kleinsassers—Horst II and Margaret and their three other children, John Wayne, Rand, and Cheyenne, Franny’s thrice-divorced mother—are not only toxic, but viperishly dangerous to Blake and now Cassie. Everyone in Lochsa County, from Sheriff Ben Wagy on down, is in their pockets, and everyone Cassie talks to, from the Kleinsassers to the local law, finds new ways to make her life miserable. But Cassie, an ex-cop single mother, isn’t one to back down, especially since she wonders why anyone would take all the trouble to stop an investigation of a case that was as rock-solid as this one’s supposed to be.

An appealing new heroine, a fast-moving plot, and a memorably nightmarish family make this one of Box’s best.

Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-05105-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019

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LIFE AFTER LIFE

Provocative, entertaining and beautifully written. It’s not quite the tour de force that her Case Histories (2004) was, but...

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If you could travel back in time and kill Hitler, would you? Of course you would.

Atkinson’s (Started Early, Took My Dog, 2011, etc.) latest opens with that conceit, a hoary what-if of college dorm discussions and, for that matter, of other published yarns (including one, mutatis mutandis, by no less an eminence than George Steiner). But Atkinson isn’t being lazy, not in the least: Her protagonist’s encounter with der Führer is just one of several possible futures. Call it a more learned version of Groundhog Day, but that character can die at birth, or she can flourish and blossom; she can be wealthy, or she can be a fugitive; she can be the victim of rape, or she can choose her sexual destiny. All these possibilities arise, and all take the story in different directions, as if to say: We scarcely know ourselves, so what do we know of the lives of those who came before us, including our own parents and—in this instance—our unconventional grandmother? And all these possibilities sometimes entwine, near to the point of confusion. In one moment, for example, the conversation turns to a child who has died; reminds Ursula, our heroine, “Your daughter....She fell in the fire,” an event the child’s poor mother gainsays: “ ‘I only ever had Derek,’ she concluded firmly.” Ah, but there’s the rub with alternate realities, all of which, Atkinson suggests, can be folded up into the same life so that all are equally real. Besides, it affords several opportunities to do old Adolf in, what with his “funny little flap of the hand backward so that he looked as if he were cupping his ear to hear them better” and all.

Provocative, entertaining and beautifully written. It’s not quite the tour de force that her Case Histories (2004) was, but this latest affords the happy sight of seeing Atkinson stretch out into speculative territory again.

Pub Date: April 2, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-316-17648-4

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013

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