Babson continues her string of feline tales (The Cat Who Wasn’t a Dog, 2003, etc.) with an unlikely but enjoyable Gothic...
A twin impersonates his sister in hopes of solving her attempted murder.
Vance—stage name Gloriana—is a female impersonator who has no problem taking his sister Nessa’s place after she’s pushed off a battlement at Friary Keep, home of wealthy businessman Everett Oversall. With the help of Nessa’s doctor, he returns as a frail amnesiac, hiding his muscular body under a caftan, a turban and judiciously applied makeup. There are plenty of likely suspects in a house filled with Everett’s ex-girlfriends and a rummy group of hangers-on. Only Nessa’s Angora cat, also named Gloriana, knows that Vance is an impostor, but she can be bribed with delicacies to accept his presence. When Vance discovers a body in a monk’s cell—perhaps of another of Everett’s missing assistants—he realizes he’s in danger. A slick cleanup operation disposes of the body, and several of Everett’s minders try to convince Vance that the incident was a hallucination brought on by his injuries. Vance can only guess who hated Nessa enough to kill. Room searches, strange chanting and a mysterious monk all add to his confusion, but his strong connection to his twin keeps him searching for a solution that’s nearly the death of him and his namesake.
Babson continues her string of feline tales (The Cat Who Wasn’t a Dog, 2003, etc.) with an unlikely but enjoyable Gothic mystery that keeps you guessing.Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-33238-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Dunne/Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Koryta has never been better than with this knuckle-biting thriller.
Slowly emerging from the coma she's been in since a black cargo van rammed the car she was using to transport a visiting professor, killing him, Maine college senior Tara Beckley is targeted by a ruthless young hit man.
After the driver of the van admits his guilt, police rule the collision a simple wreck. But it doesn't take long for insurance investigator Abby Kaplan, a former racer and stunt driver who knows how cars behave at high speeds, to determine that this was no accident. She responds emotionally to Tara and her family; Abby's boyfriend in Los Angeles was left in a coma after a reckless joy ride she took him on ended badly. The bad news for the bad guys, who are desperate to get their hands on a device that was in the professor's possession, is that Tara is now conscious and alert and able to communicate by moving her eyes. Dax Blackwell, the boyish, creepily calm gunman (whose father, Jack, an Australian assassin, died in Koryta's Those Who Wish Me Dead), must not only get past Abby to get to Tara, he also has to contend with Tara's fiercely protective sister, Shannon. It's a measure of how good this book is that the chilling, masterfully sustained suspense is only one of its standout achievements. Koryta never brushes off anyone's death; he makes you feel for the victims. The relationship between Tara and her sibling is beautifully nuanced, full of revealing details going back to their childhood. And Koryta’s (How It Happened, 2018, etc.) fans will surely appreciate the suggestion of a sequel.
Koryta has never been better than with this knuckle-biting thriller.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-29400-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A high-country Presumed Innocent that moves like greased lightning. First of a welcome new series, though it’s hard to...
Rookie Twelve Sleep County Game Warden Joe Pickett’s not much of a shot, and he’s been looking like a goat ever since poacher Ote Keeley got the drop on him with his own gun during a routine arrest. But at least he’s doing better than Ote, who’s turned up dead on the woodpile outside Joe’s house. Joe’s search in Crazy Woman Creek canyon for the two outfitters and guides Ote was most recently partnered with ends happily, though violently, and suddenly Joe is the man of the hour. Longtime County Sheriff Bud Barnum nervously asks Joe’s assurance that he’s not going to support neighboring game warden Wacey Hedeman’s challenge in the upcoming election; trophy wife Aimee Kensinger, who really likes men in uniforms, invites Joe’s family to housesit her palatial digs for three weeks; and wily Vern Dunnegan, Joe’s predecessor, wants Joe to join him in pulling down big bucks from InterWest resources, the fat-cat corporation for whose gas pipeline Vern’s lining up local support. All this good news is only a front, of course, for a monstrous assault on Joe’s livelihood, his integrity, and his family—and incidentally on an inoffensive species long assumed extinct. In response, Joe promises one of the bad guys that “things are going to get real western,” and that’s exactly what happens in the satisfyingly action-filled climax.
A high-country Presumed Innocent that moves like greased lightning. First of a welcome new series, though it’s hard to imagine tourism-marketing exec Box topping his debut.Pub Date: July 9, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14748-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
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