A debutante finds herself responsible for handling a mishmash of potential disasters.
Though she’s just returned from rescuing her ungrateful little sister, Teensy, from south of the border, Dainty Prescott is soon thrust into another dangerous situation when she and some friends witness the murder of a spa’s owners and staff. Dainty leads her friends through a dangerous escape, but she can’t get past the injustice of getting into trouble in the first place. She never would’ve been at the spa if wealthy businessman Avery Marshall hadn’t called in a favor and asked Dainty to turn his tomboy stepdaughter, Dawn, into the next big thing at the Rubanbleu ball. Thinking a spa weekend with some well-bred influences might make Dawn a bit more of a lady, Avery insisted that Dainty be her escort. But witnessing murders really puts a damper on the girls’ weekend and seems to make Dawn act a little crazy—though later it turns out that she’s stopped her psych meds. This is only the beginning of a slew of barely connected troubles for Dainty, including her father’s decision to put her childhood house on the market and her grandmother’s apparent drowning in a cruise-related incident. Barely there for her is boyfriendish lawman Jim Bruckman, though his absence may depend more on the limits of narrative space than on the plot: Dainty’s Debutante Detective Agency and her job at WBFD-TV barely rate mentions with all the other incidents crammed in.
Forget plots and subplots. Moore (Deb on Air—Live At Five, 2013, etc.) has so much going on that readers may have to take notes.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4328-3095-3
Page Count: 380
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
Categories: MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | DETECTIVES & PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In Brennan’s (Nothing To Hide, 2019, etc.) new series launch, a hard-edged female LAPD undercover cop and an ambitious FBI special agent race to catch a serial killer before he strikes again.
On paid administrative leave since an incident with a suspect went wrong, a restless Detective Kara Quinn is on an early morning run in her hometown of Liberty Lake, Washington, when she discovers the flayed corpse of a young nurse. In D.C., FBI Special Agent in Charge Mathias Costa is staffing the new Mobile Response Team, designed to cover rural areas underserved by law enforcement, when his boss assigns Matt and analyst Ryder Kim to Liberty Lake. The notorious Triple Killer, who murders three random victims, three days apart, every three years, has returned. With only six days to identify and catch the culprit, and only three days until he kills again, the team is “on a very tight clock.” What should be on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense turns into a slog marred by pedestrian prose (“she heard nothing except birds chirping…”), a convoluted plot slowed down by a focus on dull bureaucratic infighting, and flat character development. The sole exception is the vividly drawn Kara. Smart, angry, defensive, complicated, she fascinates both the reader and Matt ("Kara Quinn was different—and he couldn’t put his finger on why”).
Inside this bloated novel is a lean thriller starring a strong and damaged protagonist who's as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0944-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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Lukewarm thriller from bestselling Brown (Hello, Darkness, 2003, etc.).
Sayre Hoyle doesn’t believe her brother Danny committed suicide, and she’s returned home to prove it—but it seems nothing ever changes in Destiny, Louisiana. The small town looks the same as ever, and the same good old boys are sitting in the same vinyl booths at the same diner, conniving and backstabbing and telling lies. Too bad one of them just happens to be Sayre’s daddy, Huff Hoyle. A self-made rich man in a poor parish, he owns a smoke-belching iron foundry, a hellish place that at least provides employment for the beaten-down men of Destiny. If industrial accidents do happen in one of ’em now and then, well, that’s God’s will. Tough-talking Huff don’t want the government OSHA boys anywhere near his foundry, and that goes double for union organizers and other un-American busybodies. Sayre’s heard it all before—and still doesn’t trust either him or her creepy older brother, Chris, who took so much pleasure in tormenting her when they were young. And there’s Huff’s new right-hand man, lawyer Beck Merchant, to contend with. What exactly does Beck stand to gain by his involvement with Huff and cronies? If only he weren’t so good-looking and sexy. . . . Back to the story: Did Slap Watkins, jug-eared, degenerate scion of inbred bayou-dwellers, kill gentleman Danny in a fit of rage when Danny refused to hire Slap’s fellow parolees? Nah. Slap doesn’t have the brains or coordination to kill a June bug. Back to the subplot: Will the tyrannical Huff resort to violence when his ironworkers defy him and go out on strike? And back to the reason Sayre hates Huff: He forced her to have an abortion, performed by an incompetent doctor who tied her, screaming, to the table in his back room. And now for the reason Beck hates Huff . . . .
Sluggish plot hemmed in by too much backstory and going-through-the-motions prose. Not Brown’s best.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-4553-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
Categories: GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | MYSTERY & DETECTIVE
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