This taut vigilante story delivers suspense and a handful of surprises.
A federal judge takes justice into his own lethal hands in Flynn’s dark legal thriller.
In the Chicago summer of 1989, drunk driver Dick Lowell fatally hits a young waitress riding a bicycle. Lowell first calls his friend Phil Denniston, a lawyer who ultimately represents him in a civil case. Thanks in large part to incompetence on the part of the prosecutor, the settlement favors Lowell. This certainly doesn’t sit well with the presiding judge Adam Willow, especially after he overhears Lowell all but admitting to his crime. Circumstances put Willow alone with this man, and the judge decides to hold his own personal trial, which ends in capital punishment. But Lowell isn’t the only guilty person who has walked away from court relatively unscathed, and Judge Willow, who abides by United States law, must sometimes let a defendant go. So, he continues pursuing his own peculiar brand of justice; on one occasion, he lets the criminal come to him, but he’s not above ambushing a malefactor. The FBI quickly links the resulting deaths, as each victim had recently appeared in court. But that still leaves a number of potential suspects, from individuals who work at the Chicago Federal Courthouse to “the Court Buffs,” a group of retired men who are habitual courtroom spectators. When the police arrest someone else for one of Willow’s deeds, the judge has a tough choice to make: Can he clear this defendant’s name legally in the courtroom, or will he have to take more drastic measures to keep an innocent person out of prison?
Considering its grim premise, Flynn’s novel is unexpectedly restrained. For starters, the true focus is on the moments leading up to the murders and their aftermath; in many instances, the murders themselves are not depicted. The extensive cast includes the Buffs, quite a few judges (including a Supreme Court Justice), and law clerks, such as the newly hired Ellen Godfrey in Willow’s office. In between trials, motions, and scenes of Willow essentially executing people, the characters intermittently find themselves in lighter situations; a highlight occurs when Buff leader Maguire, after implying that he’s a lawyer, offers cops his amusingly unorthodox identification. The story reveals glimpses of Willow’s backstory—he fought in Korea and is saddled with PTSD-like symptoms. There’s nevertheless very little insight into the judge, and his moral stance, especially with regard to his present-day actions, isn’t quite as lucid as readers may wish. Still, unrelenting tension propels the narrative, as Willow’s actions are often in question: Who’s his next target, how will he “enforce” the law, and what will he do to help the wrongfully accused individual? The plot includes some solid set pieces, including bouts of memorable weather: “The wind swept in from the north, driving the snow into [his] face. The scarf grew moist from his breath. His eyes stung from the ice particles.” Although a romantic subplot is predictable, the final act churns out a few shocks.
This taut vigilante story delivers suspense and a handful of surprises.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2023
ISBN: 9798890220707
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.
What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.
One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.
More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Excitement for series fans looking to revisit Bentz and Montoya’s greatest hits while promising something new for the future.
Is the potential return of a series villain the end for a clever detective and his daughter, a true-crime author, in the last book in Jackson’s Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya series?
On the streets of the French Quarter of New Orleans, an unnamed killer is plotting his next crime with satisfaction. He’s been waiting a long time to go after Kristi Bentz and end her string of true-crime bestsellers. But when the murderer makes his move, he’s thrown off course by the unexpected arrival of Kristi’s husband, Jay McKnight. In the ensuing struggle, Jay is killed and Kristi left in shock. Her father, Det. Rick Bentz, wants to comfort his daughter, but he and partner Det. Reuben Montoya have other things to worry about when an earlier case resurfaces in a way that seems impossible. They’d thought Father John, a fake priest obsessed with killing women in the name of God, was dead after their last face-off, but their most recent string of cases follow his M.O. to a T: working girls choked to death by a string of sharpened rosary beads. Is Father John back, or do Bentz and Montoya have a copycat on their hands? The case is clearly linked to Kristi, who wrote a hit book on the so-called Rosary Killer and whose agent is demanding she do press and a follow-up volume. As Kristi worries that the unnamed killer may just be waiting to strike again, help arrives in the form of mysterious stranger Cruz Montoya, Reuben’s brother, who may need Kristi’s help.
Excitement for series fans looking to revisit Bentz and Montoya’s greatest hits while promising something new for the future.Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781496739056
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
