Readers who find some topics too serious for irony be warned—nothing is sacred in Helen’s world.
At the age of 33, Helen, the youngest and latest-blooming of the five Walsh girls, has suffered yet another setback.
She’s been forced to give up her beloved, eccentrically decorated flat and move back in with Mum and Dad. Since her detective work has all but dried up, thanks to the economic taming of the Celtic tiger, she grudgingly accepts a missing person case from an old flame, Jay, who is managing the reunion tour of a former Irish boy band, the Laddz. Only four Laddz are on board—the fifth, front man Docker, has gone on to mega-stardom in movies and is now a full time globe-trotting philanthropist. Wayne, the wackiest of the Laddz, goes abruptly AWOL four days before opening night. The other Laddz, including John Joseph and his new wife, Middle Eastern singing sensation Zeezah, not to mention Jay and a gangster named Harry, all stand to lose big-time if Wayne isn’t found. Helen’s investigation turns up no clues except a phone message from a woman named Gloria on the eve of Wayne’s disappearance from his home on a Dublin cul-de-sac called Mercy Close. Highly illegal checks of his cellphone and financial records turn up nothing. Neither Wayne’s closest associates nor jealous ex-girlfriends have any idea who Gloria could be, and a bludgeon-wielding assailant warns Helen to give up her quest. On the personal front, Helen’s new boyfriend, Artie, a cop, seems to be too amicably divorced, and his three children have mixed feelings—ranging from adoration to hatred—toward their mother’s potential replacement. Throughout, flashbacks detail Helen’s bouts of despair, related in her quirky voice, with mordant asides about psychotropic drugs and the logistics of a good suicide plan. (Hint: Avoid dog walkers while attempting to drown self.)
Readers who find some topics too serious for irony be warned—nothing is sacred in Helen’s world.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-670-02524-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
Furiously suspenseful, but brain-dead second volume in Child’s gratuitously derivative Jack Reacher action series (Killing Floor, 1997). Reacher, a former Army Military Police Major, has now moved on to Chicago, where he gallantly assists a beautiful mystery woman hobbling on a crutch with her dry cleaning. Seconds later, Reacher and the woman, FBI agent Holly Johnson (also daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as goddaughter of the President), are kidnaped by armed gunmen. Handcuffed together and tossed in the back of a van, the two are taken to the Montana mountain stronghold of Beau Borken, a fat, ugly, psychopathically vicious neo-Nazi militia leader given to sawing the arms off day laborers and making windy speeches about how he brilliant he is. Of course, the kidnappers don’t know that they have a former military police major in their clutches who, in addition to having a Silver Star for heroism, is one of the best snipers the Army has ever produced, can pull iron rings out of barn doors, and kill bad guys with lit cigarettes. Meanwhile, a team of FBI agents, at least one of whom is a mole leaking information to Borken, identify Reacher from a reconstructed photo taken from the dry cleaner’s surveillance camera. Borken, impressed with Reacher’s military record, lectures him about his brilliant plan to overthrow the US using a hijacked Army missile unit, with Holly held as a hostage in a specially constructed, dynamite-lined prison cell. Borken stupidly lets Reacher best him in a shooting match, then grandiosely turns his back on his captives enough times for Reacher and Holly to escape, cause havoc, get captured, escape, make love in the woods, cause more havoc, and get captured again, as General Johnson, FBI Director Harlan Webster, and General Garber, Reacher’s former commander, plan a covert strike on Borken’s fortress that’s certain to fail. Another Rogue Warrior meets Die Hard with all the typical over-the-top plotting, blood-splattering ultraviolence, lock-jawed heroics and the dumbest villains this side of Ruby Ridge.
Pub Date: July 20, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14379-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
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