Block out time to read this page-turner at a single sitting.
A murder and a kidnapping put tremendous pressure on a formerly Amish police officer.
Mary Yoder and two of her grandchildren are picking walnuts at a deserted homestead when Mary is brutally murdered by someone who also abducts her 7-year-old granddaughter, Elsie Helmuth. Painters Mill police chief Kate Burkholder is on patrol when a panicked Amish girl, who looks about 5, comes running toward her, "vibrating all over...mewling sounds tearing from a throat that's gone hoarse," screaming that Da Deivel has hurt her Grossmammi. Mary lived with her daughter and son-in-law Miriam and Ivan Helmuth, and the missing child is one of their eight. A massive search is instituted after the traumatized Annie Helmuth describes the killer as a very large Amish man with brown hair. Kate checks out the few obvious suspects in the generally nonviolent community, including several sex offenders, but finds no reason for the crime until one of the Helmuth children mentions that "Mamm says Elsie was a gift," and "Bishop Troyer brought her," helping Kate put together several telltale facts. Elsie was the only Helmuth child not delivered by midwife Martha Hershberger. She’s a brown-haired, brown-eyed child whose siblings are all green-eyed strawberry blonds. And two of the Helmuth girls are 7 years old. After tracking down birth certificates, Kate realizes Elsie isn’t the Helmuths’ biological child, and a distraught Miriam breaks down and admits the child was indeed brought to them by Bishop Troyer and a midwife and bishop from Scioto County. Kate, who grew up Amish before leaving the community, is aghast that Troyer would have anything to do with an illegal child placement. Following up the lead, Kate learns that the Scioto bishop was killed in a supposed hit-and-run. The midwife is murdered after Kate’s first visit. Kate herself is lucky to escape when she’s attacked by the killer. Bible verses left at the scenes that suggest someone seeking revenge leave Kate with still more trails to follow. Once again, the queen of Amish mysteries (A Gathering of Secrets, 2018, etc.) uses past events to drive her story.
Block out time to read this page-turner at a single sitting.Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-14286-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
A forced effort to leverage interest around the legendary Chelsea Hotel, this novel is a miss.
Perennial Broadway understudy Hazel Ripley and center-stage bombshell Maxine Mead formed a close bond as performers touring with the USO during World War ll. Now that they’ve been home for five years, can their friendship survive the McCarthy-era witch hunt for Communists in show business?
Davis (The Masterpiece, 2018, etc.) has built her brand crafting historical fiction set at New York landmarks like the Barbizon Hotel, the Dakota apartment building, and Grand Central Terminal. Now readers are taken behind the doors of the storied Chelsea Hotel, a creative oasis for artists and freethinkers, as Hazel and Maxine try to navigate the Broadway theater scene. While Hazel has never enjoyed success onstage, she discovers a talent for playwriting and directing. Her career is off to a promising start, especially since bestie Maxine has agreed to use her star power as a box office draw for Hazel’s show. Their drama unfolds offstage when both women are named on a list of Communist sympathizers and must testify about suspected anti-American activities. With a high-stakes storyline that should be tension-filled, the novel unfortunately features prose that is expository and flat. Maxine’s diary confessionals fail to give any insight into her inner life and seem only to serve as information downloads. Even revelations that should shock evoke a tepid response, probably because the buildup has been so noncompelling. Thankfully, Hazel’s relationships—with everyone from her mother to a private investigator working in tandem with the FBI—are more engaging and complex. Notably absent from the cast list, though, is the Chelsea Hotel itself. In Davis’ previous novels, the setting plays an integral role in the storyline. Here, though, the sparse descriptions of the site seem to be almost an afterthought. Hazel and Maxine could have been living at a Holiday Inn and it would have had no effect on the telling.
A forced effort to leverage interest around the legendary Chelsea Hotel, this novel is a miss.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4458-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good guy outsmarts a venomous viper, outguns a gazillion villains—and falls in love with a nice gal. Continuing at loose ends after being separated from the Army (the peace dividend, you know), former MP Major Jack Reacher (Die Trying, 1998, etc.) is down in Key West rather enjoying irresponsibility—until a private investigator shows up looking for him. The following day the p.i. turns up dead, fingertips sliced off for the purpose of preserving his incognito. Something nefarious is going on here, Reacher concludes, stirred by a burst of the old action-hero adrenaline. All he knows for sure, however, is that the detective was hired by a Ms. Jacob. Pause for a deductive leap or two, then on to New York to track down the mysterious Ms. Jacob. But what’s in a name? It soon develops that Ms. J isn’t mysterious at all. In fact, she’s an old friend. Before she was married, the Ms. J., now divorced, was a J already—Jodie Garber, daughter of General Garber, Reacher’s erstwhile commanding officer and mentor. Reacher last saw her when she was 15 and in the throes of a violent crush on him. Now she’s 30, and as gorgeous as you might have guessed. Among other things, she needs Reacher to finish a task begun by her recently deceased father. Reacher accepts the mission, of course, and is immediately in confrontation with a sadistic demon, obligatorily brilliant, whose intricate scam has roots in Vietnam and whose pleasure in killing and maiming is unconfined. But love (for Jodie) has not blunted Reacher’s martial capabilities, and from a climactic one-on-one with Hook (the sadistic demon) Hobie, he emerges scathed but triumphant. Unabashedly mindless but fun: Reacher swashbuckles with the best of them.
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-14467-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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