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
Dozens of twists and a couple of first-class shocks, but it all trails off like an endless fireworks display that keeps...
Lincoln Rhyme, the quadriplegic criminalist who recently knocked 'em dead at the bijou (The Bone Collector, 1997), is back, sweating to rescue a pair of kidnapped Tarheelers from the insect-loving kid who's snatched them.
Lured to North Carolina by the promise of some experimental surgery that might allow him to move more than his head and a single finger, Rhyme is on hand, along with his protégé Amelia Sachs, when Sheriff Jim Bell gets the news that Garrett Hanlon, the troubled teenager who already killed fellow-student Billy Stail and dragged Mary Beth McConnell off to the back of beyond, has returned to abduct nurse Lydia Johansson as well. Analyzing the scanty trace evidence with all his usual rigor, Rhyme, using Sachs as his eyes and nose at the crime scene, dopes out where the Insect Boy must be taking his victims, and Sachs, joined by Bell's deputies, races a trio of moronic moonshiners bent on a reward Mary Beth's mother has offered to catch up with Hanlon first. The case would be closed if this were anybody but devious Deaver. But the arrest is only his cue to turn up the heat, as Rhyme and Sachs duke it out over Hanlon's guilt, and their conflict leaves Sachs on the run with Hanlon in custody, or vice versa. As former allies turn against each other, Deaver shows loyalties dissolving and reforming in record time. But the effect of this double-time quadrille is more ingenious than illuminating; Rhyme's forensic work is more dogged than gripping; and the galaxy of junior-league threats who take the place of Deaver's usual sociopathic monsters (The Devil's Teardrop, 1999, etc.) are no more threatening than a cloud of pesky mosquitoes.
Dozens of twists and a couple of first-class shocks, but it all trails off like an endless fireworks display that keeps exploding into bangs and blossoms even after you've started to look for your car. (Literary Guild/Mystery Guild Main Selection.)Pub Date: May 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-85563-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2000
Hollywood homicide dick Harry Bosch goes up against whoever killed high-rolling, lowlife filmmaker Tony Aliso and tipped his body into the trunk of his Rolls. The early buzz on the case shouts Las Vegas—so Harry heads out there in hopes of tracking down Tony's latest companion, a stripper named Layla. Instead he finds a trail of evidence that links Tony to a money-laundering operation for Joey Marks, the outfit's top man in Vegas; to Dolly's, a strip club owned by Marks lieutenant Luke ("Lucky") Goshen; and to Eleanor Wish, an ex-FBI agent whose activities took her to Harry's bed and a stretch in the pen before she turned up on video playing poker at Tony's side. Tough-guy Harry (The Last Coyote, 1995, etc.), incredibly still carrying a torch for Eleanor, wastes no time rekindling their affair—Eleanor's sullenness cracks just long enough for some brisk sex—and then finds he has to cut all sorts of deals with the Vegas cops and his own department to keep her out of the case he's building against Lucky Goshen. Back in L.A., deeper trouble awaits: When Harry lays out the case against Goshen—motive, fingerprints, murder weapon—he's told that Goshen's an undercover FBI agent with an ironclad alibi and that he's dashed into the middle of a sting that's been years in the making. Relieved once again of his homicide assignment, Harry—together with trusty sidekicks Jerry Edgar and Kiz Rider—goes up against Tony's killers himself, with results as gripping and satisfying as they are improbable. Forget realism, okay? If you'd like to see a buried love affair take off like a rocket and a bunch of crooks and crooked cops as canny and treacherous as le Carres spies, you've come to the right place.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-316-15244-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
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