Though Amsterdam’s not as much fun as the geezers and innocents of Shames’s first seven novels (Welcome to Paradise, 1999,...
Since making his bundle back in Jersey, Pete Amsterdam’s leading a Key West regimen of late mornings, tennis, Chardonnay, and a p.i. license he maintains strictly as a tax dodge—until he meets the leggy blond client he can’t refuse, partly because showing her out would require him to bolt nude from his hot tub, partly because the charming she turns out to be an equally intriguing he, but mostly because his would-be client turns up dead the next morning on Tank Island. The late Kenny Lukens had run off to the Bahamas just as fast as his long, long legs could carry him after relieving his boss, Lefty Ortega, of two payroll pouches, one containing the night’s receipts from Lefty’s bar, the other something Lefty wanted back even more. Kenny’s friends and foes alike gang up on the reluctant Amsterdam, prodding him to discover just what Kenny had buried on Tank Island and why he came back to unbury it. Soon after lissome yoga instructor Maggie plies Pete with herbal tea, he’s scrambling off the side of her dry-docked trawler for a closer look at Kenny’s boat. Inspired by a note Ortega’s daughter Lydia passes him at Lefty’s funeral, he stares down her bodyguard to get into her condo. He even takes a turn at straight-up interrogation, questioning Lydia’s partner Mickey Veale about Ortega’s business. But before long, it’s his own curiosity and long-buried ambition that propel him toward full-fledged sleuthing.
Though Amsterdam’s not as much fun as the geezers and innocents of Shames’s first seven novels (Welcome to Paradise, 1999, etc.), his debut still gets him off to a worthy start.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50253-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
Giordano’s third Auntie Poldi mystery is frothy, if forgettable, fun. Mrs. Pollifax would be proud.
Dreams of a sweet Sicilian retirement are dashed for a Munich matron when her ex turns up and entices her into a murder investigation.
The story opens at a moment of high drama: A shady character known as Handsome Antonio is holding a fish cleaver up to the throat of beloved Auntie Poldi. The witness and chronicler of this scene is her nephew, an aspiring writer who’s the gregarious first-person narrator of her adventures (Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lion, 2018, etc.). Antonio wants, and assumes that Poldi has, “it!” But before the reader can learn what “it” is, the story flashes back to a visit Poldi receives from her Tanzanian ex-husband, John Owenya, whom she thought she was well rid of. Not only does this put a crimp in her budding relationship with Vito Montana; John’s half brother, Thomas, has disappeared, presumably on the run from the Mafia. Given her reputation as a detective, it’s no wonder that John wants Poldi’s help. The only clue left behind is a card with the name “Handsome Antonio” and a 12-digit number printed on it. And so the game is afoot, Poldi’s heedless headlong sleuthing (she rides a Vespa) chafing against her nephew’s long-winded timidity. The murder of Thomas raises the stakes but doesn’t darken the tone of this comic caper. There’s no dearth of banter, chases, and narrow escapes. A dash of zest comes from capsule descriptions of the narrative at the beginning of each chapter.
Giordano’s third Auntie Poldi mystery is frothy, if forgettable, fun. Mrs. Pollifax would be proud.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-30942-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Child builds tension to unbearable extremes, then blows it out in sharply choreographed violence, even if his plot has more...
Smashingly suspenseful fifth in Child’s series (Running Blind, 2000, etc.) lands this British author’s rootless, laconic action hero in southwest Texas, where a femme fatale lures him into a family squabble that inevitably turns violent.
In the kind of daylight-noir setting that Jim Thompson loved, ex-military cop Jack Reacher has his thumb out on a lonely west Texas highway when he’s picked up by Carmine Greer, the Mexican-American wife of bad-ol’-boy Sloop Greer. It seems that Sloop, elder son of a white-trash-turned-oil-rich ranching dynasty, is nearing the end of a prison term for tax evasion, and Carmine, whose body Reacher sees is marked with signs of physical abuse, wants Reacher to be her bodyguard—or, failing that, kill the man in such a way that Carmine can still hold on to her terminally cute six-year-old daughter Ellie. Reacher refuses but decides to meet the folks: Rusty, Sloop’s racist, charmless mother, and Bobby, Sloop’s stupid, pugnacious brother. Meanwhile, a trio of paid assassins is littering the Texas roadside with corpses, starting with Sloop’s lawyer, Al Eugene. In a set-piece as good as anything in Elmore Leonard, Bobby sends two ranch-hands to ambush Reacher at an Abilene roadhouse filled with 20 other cowboys spoiling for a fight. Reacher walks away without a scratch, telling Bobby that his hospitalized ranch-hands have “quit.” Child twists his increasingly hokey plot into a pretzel when Sloop is found dead and Carmine confesses to killing him. Reacher just can’t believe that Carmine is guilty and teams up with Alice Aarons, a leggy Jewish lesbian fresh out of law school, who trusts him with her car, her handgun, and her life.
Child builds tension to unbearable extremes, then blows it out in sharply choreographed violence, even if his plot has more holes in it than the shirt Reacher uses for target practice.Pub Date: July 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14726-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
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