A worthy origin story featuring a driven, cat-loving, complex FBI agent.
An FBI profiler tasked to help solve a grisly murder gets push back from a hard-nosed detective in charge of the case in this procedural thriller.
In Lacefield’s latest book, FBI agent Frances “Frankie” Johnson and the Charlotte, North Carolina, police work to solve the brutal slashing, rape, and murder of 25-year-old Lianna Wakefield-Bradenton in her apartment. Lianna’s father, the local district attorney, is “close, like family,” with Detective Deke Deaton, the former Marine heading up the case. Deke quickly names Lianna’s playboy husband, Stewart Bradenton, as the prime suspect, but Frankie cautions her team leader not to rush to conclusions, “charging in like a bull on steroids.” “Justitia Extremum,” Latin for “justice finally,” written in blood on Lianna’s wall, tells Frankie the crime was personal, not random, and she questions if it could be revenge for a criminal conviction the victim’s father oversaw. One of the profiles Frankie develops matches personal trainer Joe Archuletta to a tee. Although supported by his girlfriend, he may have been Lianna’s lover. Then there’s Ripley, owner of the bar where Lianna was last seen; his eyelid twitches when Frankie interviews him. Deke admits Frankie’s profiles seem accurate, but in terms of an arrest, “he didn’t want anyone taking credit for what would be his ultimate victory.” Yet he enjoys eating Frankie’s homemade shrimp scampi and sitting on her couch with her cat as he notices that the “woman had curves.” In this engaging series opener featuring a kick-ass hero, a mix of ethnicities is represented. Frankie herself, almost 30 years old and said to scare off men, is a blend of African American, French Cajun, and White European. Her father was a mean drunk, and her close colleague and confidant is gay, handsome Ben Andrews. Conversations ring true, as does police work. But giving one suspect a sideline as a professional knife thrower is a bit too much on the nose, and thriller aficionados may discover the killer early on.
A worthy origin story featuring a driven, cat-loving, complex FBI agent.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.
A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.
Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.
Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781250328175
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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