Ignore the false notes here—the tough-but-vulnerable swagger, the overheated backstory, the witless Who’s-on-First...
How’s this for a conflict of interest? The same day Detective Cézanne Martin, of the Fort Worth Police Department, learns that she’s passed the Texas bar exam, she catches a red-hot homicide: the slaying of Carrie Crane, the daughter of hard-nosed Captain Chuck Crane, Cézanne’s boss. Acting on information Cézanne’s partner, hard-drinking Roby Tyson, meant for her ears alone, the department moves swiftly to build a case against Roby, who offers her $50,000 if she’ll take him on as her first legal client while she’s still working the case. Not only does Cézanne see no ethical problem here but, realizing that the case file will be closed to Roby’s attorney, she blackmails her old mentor, Deputy Chief Daniel Rosen, into reinstating her in Homicide—this after she’s sidelined to the career graveyard of the Pawn Shop Detail, where she’s run into more antagonism in the shape of new secretary Darlene Driskoll, the wife Cézanne never suspected departmental ladies’ man Doug Driskoll was hiding when he swept her out of the squad room and into bed. As their colleagues circle the wagons against Roby and Cézanne, she reaches out to the one person she can trust: a hayseed sheriff from Johnson County. Clearly, debut novelist Moore isn’t conflict-shy, and she’s created a no-holds-barred heroine who does whatever she needs to in order to come out on top.
Ignore the false notes here—the tough-but-vulnerable swagger, the overheated backstory, the witless Who’s-on-First interlude, the interminable windup—and pray that Moore, who’s well worth watching, sticks to her best stuff next time.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7862-4827-0
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2002
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances,...
An anonymous letter brings DCI Harry Nelson memories of past sorrows and present dangers.
The letter mentions a stone circle that harks back to the 20-year-old case of a missing child. Ten years later, another missing child introduced Harry to archaeologist Ruth Galloway when he asked her to examine some bones. That case began a working relationship that turned out to be equally productive in personal terms: A short-lived affair between the two produced a child, Kate, though Harry is married and has two grown daughters. His wife, Michelle, who accepts Kate in their lives, is about to give birth to a baby who may or may not be Harry’s. A new archaeological team working near the site of the original henge finds a stone coffin containing bones. The head of the dig is Leif Anderssen, whose father, Erik, was Ruth’s mentor all those years ago. As Harry continues to receive cryptic messages, the bones of what Ruth thinks is a young girl are found near the new dig, opening up yet another old case. The police think the body is that of Margaret Lacey, who vanished from a street party in 1981. The focus at the time was on her parents; her older siblings, Annie and Luke; and John Mostyn, a neighbor and odd duck who collected stones. But nothing was ever proven, and Margaret’s body was never found. The birth of George, Michelle’s son, puts more pressure on Harry, who loves his wife and Ruth in different ways, to stay in his marriage. Nelson’s team and some friends of Ruth’s use their own areas of expertise to search for clues from the past, but when the child of Annie’s daughter, Star, is kidnapped, the present-day crisis takes center stage.
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances, police procedure, and agonizing relationship problems will keep you reading, and feeling, all night.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-97464-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.
Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).
After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1134-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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