Memorable characters make for a winsome, absorbing detective tale.
In this mystery/thriller, two Los Angeles private eyes team up on a case involving murder, blackmail, and missing people.
Mari E–whose full name isn’t disclosed at first—is barely into her latest investigation when threatening notes turn up in her mailbox. She’s apparently too close to unmasking whomever is blackmailing an appellate judge with reputed evidence of murder. So she brings in another PI for “backup”—Derek Abernathy, whom she meets for the first time. It turns out the case he’s working on has ties to hers. He’s looking into a couple of journalist co-workers, one who’s been missing for a month and the other dead by strangulation. The two had been investigating the homicide of French art student Sophie Michaud, whose case has connections to Mari’s judge client. It only gets more complicated from there, as questions surround Sophie’s autopsy, the journalists’ unpublished articles, and secret histories that the PIs dredge up. All the while, a mysterious dark gray van incessantly shadows Mari, and someone breaks into her house. Mari and Derek, working with local police and Mari’s resourceful Tibetan friend Duga, scramble to close the case before another body turns up. Towles (Ninety-Five, 2021, etc.) packs a hefty plot into this entertaining book. It’s sometimes tongue-in-cheek; the PIs solidify their partnership by checking each other out through surveillance or rooting through garbage. The mystery nevertheless enthralls, and though copious dialogue scenes dive deep into case particulars and evolving theories, the story is never confusing. The cast is equally riveting; the private eyes work alongside Detective Ivan Dent, who is Mari’s ex-lover and had fired Derek from his LAPD job. Mari herself is a delightful enigma, as her former career in the CIA and her inexplicably missing father both have links to the blackmail/murder investigation. The story offers myriad answers by the end, but all the unresolved bits practically demand a sequel.
Memorable characters make for a winsome, absorbing detective tale.Pub Date: June 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64456-425-7
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Indies United Publishing House
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.
The ne’er-do-well son of a successful Irish American family gets dragged into criminal complications that suggest the rest of the Devlins aren’t exactly the upstanding citizens they appear.
The first 35 years in the life of Thomas “TJ” Devlin have been one disappointment after another to his parents, lawyers who founded a prosperous insurance and reinsurance firm, and his more successful siblings, John and Gabby. A longtime alcoholic who’s been unemployable ever since he did time for an incident involving his ex-girlfriend Carrie’s then 2-year-old daughter, TJ is nominally an investigator for Devlin & Devlin, but everyone knows the post is a sinecure. Things change dramatically when golden-boy John tells TJ that he just killed Neil Lemaire, an accountant for D&D client Runstan Electronics. Their speedy return to the murder scene reveals no corpse, so the brothers breathe easier—until Lemaire turns up shot to death in his car. John’s way of avoiding anything that might jeopardize his status as heir apparent to D&D is to throw TJ under the bus, blaming him for everything John himself has done and adding that you can’t trust anything his brother has said since he’s fallen off the wagon. TJ, who’s maintained his sobriety a day at a time for nearly two years, feels outraged, but neither the police investigating the murder nor his nearest and dearest care about his feelings. Forget the forgettable mystery, whose solution will leave you shrugging instead of gasping, and focus on the circular firing squad of the Devlins, and you’ll have a much better time than TJ.
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780525539704
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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