An unpredictable and gripping thriller with a strong cast.
In this mystery, an investigation into a woman’s murder and dismemberment forces police detectives to delve into the worst of humanity.
For Det. Kimberly Hall, a murder investigation is nothing new. She knows how to deal with her boss, Capt. Mitchel, and the frustrating reporter Jessica Stevens. Hall recognizes she has a team of experts to help her find the killer. But the same experience and knowledge aren’t shared by her rookie partner, Det. Alex Diaz, and one of his decisions may cost the victim, Laura Gibbons, the justice she deserves. For Laura, life had never been easy—and now it is over. The abuse she faced as a child from her violent father and her neglectful mother had left her afraid to trust anyone to truly love her. The suspects in her murder include her ex-boyfriend Nathan Watters; her current boyfriend, Jordan Walsh; and the best friend she was in love with, Brady Callister. Something happened between Brady and Laura that left them not speaking for months. Her mother says Laura had a bad breakup with Nathan. And it turns out that Jordan has a criminal history. Medical Examiner Ramya Singh concludes that Laura died on Friday night—right after she had dinner with Brady. But Brady saw her alive when he left his girlfriend, Andrea, and detectives discovered a necklace on Laura’s body that was given to her by Nathan (“It has an inscription on the back: ‘No more bad days’ ”). More concerning is the enigmatic older man Laura texted a friend about: Ryan Leary. Whitaker’s characters are well developed, with their moral complexity highlighting the mystery and creating a compelling story. Diaz’s eagerness and Hall’s experience and by-the-book attitude meld well. The fast-paced plot with unexpected turns is effectively supported by the captivating characters driving it. The realism of the players, especially Hall and Diaz, and the challenges they face add believable stakes to the mystery. Even characters like Jessica, whose actions are unsympathetic but understandable, remain intriguing and bolster the intricate narrative. The author has crafted a masterful mystery.
An unpredictable and gripping thriller with a strong cast.Pub Date: March 14, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-4322-3243-4
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
This book and its author are cleverer than you and want you to know it.
In this mystery, the narrator constantly adds commentary on how the story is constructed.
In 1929, during the golden age of mysteries, a (real-life) writer named Ronald Knox published the “10 Commandments of Detective Fiction,” 10 rules that mystery writers should obey in order to “play fair.” When faced with his own mystery story, our narrator, an author named Ernest Cunningham who "write[s] books about how to write books," feels like he must follow these rules himself. The story seemingly begins on the night his brother Michael calls to ask him to help bury a body—and shows up with the body and a bag containing $267,000. Fast-forward three years, and Ernie’s family has gathered at a ski resort to celebrate Michael’s release from prison. The family dynamics are, to put it lightly, complicated—and that’s before a man shows up dead in the snow and Michael arrives with a coffin in a truck. When the local cop arrests Michael for the murder, things get even more complicated: There are more deaths; Michael tells a story about a coverup involving their father, who was part of a gang called the Sabers; and Ernie still has (most of) the money and isn’t sure whom to trust or what to do with it. Eventually, Ernie puts all the pieces together and gathers the (remaining) family members and various extras for the great denouement. As the plot develops, it becomes clear that there’s a pretty interesting mystery at the heart of this novel, but Stevenson’s postmodern style has Ernie constantly breaking the fourth wall to explain how the structure of his story meets the criteria for a successful detective story. Some readers are drawn to mysteries because they love the formula and logic—this one’s for them. If you like the slow, sometimes-creepy, sometimes-comforting unspooling of a good mystery, it might not be your cup of tea—though the ending, to be fair, is still something of a surprise.
This book and its author are cleverer than you and want you to know it.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-327902-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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