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FATALLY INFERIOR

A layered and fast-paced mystery that also takes time to explore the importance of Darwin’s work.

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

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Three detectives investigate the disappearance of Charles Darwin’s daughter-in-law in Squire’s historical mystery.

Archibald Line, London’s former chief of detectives, is already investigating the sender of a mysterious, threatening letter sent to scientist Charles Darwin’s home when he is called back to assist with a more pressing matter: the disappearance of Darwin’s daughter-in-law Henrietta. Line soon learns that Henrietta has been missing for four days and that the current chief of detectives, Jeremiah Fickett, is already on the case. Line also sends a personal note to Dunston Burnett, a retired bookkeeper who initially seems positioned as a Watson-like figure to Line’s Holmes, though Burnett soon launches his own investigation. Interspersed between these three strands of investigation is the initially curious story of Lucy Kinsley, a woman fallen on hard times who has just had her baby taken from her when Lucy is officially pronounced dead (though she’s still alive). Traversing these eventually converging narrative paths, Squire presents different views of Victorian London. The Lucy sections are particularly grimy: “The nurse on duty was asleep in a chair, totally oblivious to the ugly sounds issuing from the forty or so beds crammed into the ward. If the moaning, sobbing, and occasional scream were not enough to wake her, then quiet-as-a-mouse Lucy was not likely to disturb her.” The author also skillfully creates tension by cross-cutting between the investigative threads. By the time another letter appears at the Darwins’ doorstep, and a body that might be Henrietta’s is discovered along the Thames, readers will be racing through the chapters. Lucy’s section slows the momentum in the first third of the novel, but her role in the mystery becomes clearer as the story unfolds. Alongside the sleuthing runs a discussion of the transformational impact of Darwin’s work and the fiery response it received from religious leaders and believers.

A layered and fast-paced mystery that also takes time to explore the importance of Darwin’s work.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2024

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

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

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ROBERT B. PARKER'S BURIED SECRETS

So, Paradise isn’t paradise, and the Parker legacy lives on.

Parker’s Jesse Stone series continues with more trouble in Paradise, Massachusetts.

Police Chief Jesse Stone does a welfare check at the urging of a local citizen named Matthew Peebles and discovers a dead body in a room piled high with trash and old Polaroids depicting murder victims, either garroted or shot in the head. Who werethese victims? Chief Stone improbably keeps the investigation local—no need to complicate the story with the state police or the FBI—and that helps maintain the small-town flavor of this entertaining tale. Stone hires a new cop, Derek Tate, for his understaffed department. But to put it mildly, Tate is a poor fit. Boss and newcomer have radically different concepts of policing: Stone sees himself as a servant of his community, while Tate only wants to catch criminals and crack heads. At one point, Stone asks him what he did on his shift: “Did you give a tourist directions? Did you help an old lady cross the street or get a little girl’s cat out of a tree? Anything at all like that?” Tate replies “That’s not what real cops do,” and proceeds to alienate “beloved institutional figure” Daisy, cafe owner and longtime provider of donuts and muffins to Paradise’s finest. Indeed, Tate could be a model fascist, and Stone’s biggest mistake is not firing him. Meanwhile, Peebles fears for his life because of his “aging mobster” great uncle, who just might have something to do with all those murders. If Peebles says anything to the cops, he knows he’s a dead man. Hell, he’s probably doomed anyway. Stone is a stand-up cop who puts his life on the line for the town he loves, and his dealings with friends and colleagues are fun to witness: “I’m the chief. I’m supposed to tell you what to do,” he tells Molly Crane, his deputy chief. “It’s adorable that you think that,” she replies. And when all Paradise cops are banned from Daisy’s cafe because of Tate’s stupidity, Stone navigates treacherous territory while showing respect. This is Farnsworth’s first entry in the series created by Robert Parker, and fans will be pleased.

So, Paradise isn’t paradise, and the Parker legacy lives on.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025

ISBN: 9780593544761

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024

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