Despite some overheated damsel-in-distress complications toward the end, a stellar demonstration of the proposition that...
Rosato & DiNunzio, Philadelphia’s most drama-ridden law firm (Damaged, 2016, etc.), faces perhaps its most dramatic episode ever when it’s threatened from both outside and in.
Sales rep Simon Pensiera’s wrongful-termination case against OpenSpace, from which his boss, Todd Eddington, fired him when his daughter Rachel’s medical expenses rose into the stratosphere, ought to be open and shut—especially since Simon, the son of one of Matty DiNunzio’s oldest South Philly friends, is practically a cousin to Matty’s daughter, Mary, who offers to take the case for free. It turns out, though, that Mary’s partner, Bennie Rosato, has long represented Dumbarton Industries, OpenSpace’s owner, so there’s an obvious conflict of interest. Or maybe not so obvious, Mary and Bennie decide separately after doing a little independent research. Even so, it’s clear that Mary really wants to take the case, and Dumbarton CEO Nate Lence, who’s always had a thing for Bennie, really wants her to leave it alone—so much that when Bennie tries to resolve the conflict by pulling all Dumbarton’s business, Nate files a retaliatory defamation suit seeking $2 million from the newly unemployed Simon, who already can’t afford the bone-marrow transplant Rachel desperately needs. Can things get any worse? Of course they can, as Mary shows when she launches the nuclear option and leaves the firm, a move that not only rocks Bennie’s world, but makes the two former partners adversaries in nearly every sense imaginable. Then Todd Eddington is murdered with all the evidence pointing directly to Simon, and this wild, intricate, yet perfectly clear, greased-lightning legal nightmare still has half its length to run.
Despite some overheated damsel-in-distress complications toward the end, a stellar demonstration of the proposition that although it can’t bring back the dead, “justice was still the best consolation prize going.” The final curtain will find you cheering, and Scottoline will have earned every hurrah.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-09971-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Utter non-scents.
Die-hard Yankee candle maker Stella Wright (Murder’s No Votive Confidence, 2018) gets caught up in a trans-Atlantic murder plot.
Stella thoroughly enjoys her trip to Paris even though her mother, perfume expert Millie Wright, who’s scheduled to speak on a panel entitled “The Art of Scent Extractions” at the World Perfumery Conference, gets preempted by a murder. Sadly, once they’re back home in Nantucket, things get even weirder. Stella receives an anonymous note threatening her mom if Stella doesn’t turn over a secret formula hidden in Millie’s bag. Her mom can’t help because she’s in the hospital courtesy of an overenthusiastic attempt by Stella’s cat, Tinker, to befriend her. While trespassing on a suspicious sailboat, Stella meets U.S. Agent Sarah Hill, who warns her that well-known anarchist Rex Laruam plans to disrupt the upcoming Peace Jubilee using a stolen formula he secreted in Millie’s bag after he stabbed the agent guarding it back in Paris. Ignoring the advice of her friend Andy Southerland, a Nantucket cop, to leave detection to the professionals, Stella tries to unmask the elusive Laruam. As she spies on a bevy of unlikely suspects, the plot spirals further and further out of control: There’s a Canadian couple staying at an Airbnb run by Stella’s cousin Chris who whisper sweet but suspicious nothings in the dark, a shovel-wielding schoolmarm, a gang of old geezers who have a collective crush on Millie, a surprise 30th-birthday party planned by Stella’s beau, Peter Bailey, and an even more surprising impromptu airplane ride.
Utter non-scents.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2141-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.
A plucky group of early-20th-century detectives (Murder on Trinity Place, 2019, etc.) takes on the Black Hand.
The leads include Frank Malloy and Gino Donatelli, former police officers who started a detective agency after an unexpected legacy made Malloy a wealthy man; Malloy’s wife, Sarah, the daughter of a wealthy society family who runs a maternity clinic for the poor; and their nanny, Maeve, a budding sleuth who works in Malloy’s office. All of them leap to attention when Gino’s sister-in-law Teodora reports that Jane Harding, a worker at the settlement house where Teo volunteers, has been kidnapped by the Black Hand, who are notorious for abducting the wives and children of anyone who can afford to pay ransom. The New York Police Department is corrupt, and the local Italian immigrants never report crimes. Mr. McWilliam, who runs the settlement house, had asked Jane to marry him, but she’d asked him to allow her to experience more of the single life before deciding. Seeking clues, Sarah visits Mrs. Cassidi, an earlier kidnapping victim who’s refused to talk to anyone, in hopes that her nursing experience and sympathetic manner will get results. Mrs. Cassidi admits to being raped but knows little about where she was held captive, a quiet place in a house where she could hear children. Soon after Nunzio Esposito, a leader of the Black Hand, tells Malloy that no one’s been taken from the settlement house, Jane suddenly reappears but refuses to discuss where she’s been. Lisa Prince, Jane’s well-to-do cousin, reluctantly agrees to take her in even though Jane’s jealous of her wealth and can be unpleasant to deal with. When Esposito’s found murdered in a flat he rented for his mistress, Gino, who’s just arrived on the scene, is arrested. Now the clever sleuths must solve both the murder and the abductions to clear Gino’s name.
A middling mystery with telling historical details and the usual pleasures provided by the regulars’ interpersonal dynamics.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0574-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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