by Mark Wheaton ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2017
An often entertaining, action-heavy thriller that hits some familiar beats.
In Wheaton’s (City of Strangers, 2016, etc.) third series installment, Father Luis Chavez and Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Michael Story investigate a massive money-laundering scheme.
At dinner, Story’s girlfriend and co-worker, Naomi Okpewho, tells him that she’s just stumbled across some troubling information about Charles Sittenfield, a banker, who’s under investigation for his wife’s murder. Specifically, Naomi has found evidence of “something that could lead to additional charges outside the scope of this investigation.” However, on her drive back home, Naomi dies in a suspicious accident, and Story figures that it must be related to the Sittenfield case. At the same time, Chavez is dealing with a crisis of faith: he can no longer hear God’s voice, and he feels as if he is going through the motions instead of being a true vessel for the Lord. He’s also troubled by his estranged father’s reappearance in his life. Story is attacked while meeting with Gennady Archipenko, a money launderer who works at Sittenfield’s bank, and this leads to the death of one of Chavez’s parishioners, drawing him, reluctantly, into the mystery. Together, Story and Chavez uncover a massive financial conspiracy that puts their lives—and those of everyone in their orbit—in peril. Wheaton is skilled at plotting, always keeping the revelations and twists coming. He also knows when to punch things up with a firefight, which he does often. The prose is dialogue-heavy and often stylistically plain. Still, Wheaton does offer some clever turns of phrase, such as Story’s foreboding realization that “the mouth of my grave has opened.” The characters sometimes stray into cliché—a drug-cartel boogeyman, a Russian white-collar-crime maestro, a young computer whiz. But Wheaton creates some real emotional tension as Chavez investigates the Roman Catholic Church, the very institution to which he’s pledged his life. The various connections of the money-laundering conspiracy can stretch credulity at times, but most of the plot threads are neatly tied up by the end, which includes hints of more stories to come.
An often entertaining, action-heavy thriller that hits some familiar beats.Pub Date: June 13, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4778-1944-9
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Agatha Christie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1934
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
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by Robert Goldsborough ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 19, 2020
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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