The mind-bogglingly improbable setup and the number of wild cards in the mix guarantee endless plot twists, most of them so...
Bay Area forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett’s fourth case (The Liar’s Lullaby, 2010, etc.) finds her caught in the middle of a fantasy crime spree turned deadly.
Hedge-fund king Peter Reiniger is no ordinary father, and his 21st-birthday present to his thoroughly spoiled daughter Autumn is no ordinary gift. He’s hired Edge Adventures to orchestrate a weekend scenario in which Autumn becomes the Queen of Crime and five of her best buds get to play the roles of her lawyer, her accomplices and her nemesis. But not even Edge’s reputation for elaborate planning can prevent rogue financier Dane Haugen from stepping into the middle of this latter-day fairy tale and, motivated by some obscure harm he suffered at Reiniger’s hands, kidnapping Autumn for real for $20 million. Jo and her main man, Sgt. Gabe Quintana, are on their way back from attorney Phelps Wylie’s final resting place—an abandoned gold mine in which, Jo quickly rules, he certainly didn’t commit suicide—when they stop to play Good Samaritan and are rewarded by getting taken captive along with Autumn and her friends. Not enough complications for you? Another freelance kidnapper plans to grab Autumn and company from Haugen’s clutches, ransom Autumn and make short work of the supporting cast—one of whom has the bright idea of jumping the bad guys, turning a routine fake-kidnapping-turned-real into a fight for survival against armed criminals, rattlesnakes and every other wilderness peril you can imagine.
The mind-bogglingly improbable setup and the number of wild cards in the mix guarantee endless plot twists, most of them so diabolically engineered that you’ll forget how wafer-thin the characters are.Pub Date: July 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-525-95221-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
Proceed at your own risk.
Pioneering pathologist Kay Scarpetta (Trace, 2004, etc.) goes up against a wraithlike killer whose self-appointed mission is to “relieve others of their suffering.”
Practice, practice, practice. If only 16-year-old South Carolina tennis phenom Drew Martin had stuck to the court instead of going off to Rome to party, her tortured corpse wouldn’t be baffling the Italian authorities, headed inexplicably by medico legale Capt. Ottorino Poma, and the International Investigative Response team, which includes both Scarpetta and her lover, forensic psychologist Benton Wesley. But the young woman’s murder and the gruesome forensic riddles it poses are something of a sideshow to the main event: the obligatory maundering of the continuing cast. Wesley still won’t leave Boston for the woman he tepidly insists he loves. Scarpetta’s niece, computer whiz Lucy Farinelli, continues to be jealously protective of her aunt. Scarpetta’s investigator, Pete Marino, is so besotted by the trailer-trash pickup who’s pushing his buttons that he does some terrible things. And Scarpetta herself is threatened by every misfit in the known universe, from a disgruntled mortician to oracular TV shrink Marilyn Self. Cornwell’s trademark forensics have long since been matched by Karin Slaughter and CSI. What’s most distinctive about this venerable franchise is the kitchen-sink plotting; the soap-opera melodrama that prevents any given volume from coming to a satisfying end; and the emphasis on titanic battles between Scarpetta and a series of Antichrists.
Proceed at your own risk.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-399-15393-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.
An accountant and her lawyer husband must revisit his high school days in order to solve a murder.
Lee Woodyard is no fan of the scheme her husband, Joe, and her uncle, Hogan Jones, the local police chief, hatch to buy the Bailey house next door and flip it. But even though she’d rather be at her job as business manager at her aunt’s chocolate specialty shop (The Chocolate Bunny Brouhaha, 2016, etc.), she agrees to meet with the plumber for an estimate—a meeting that turns dangerous when plumber Digger Brown finds a bundle of rags in the cellar. When he drops them, a gun hidden in the bundle goes off, sending a bullet whizzing past Lee. No one seems to know where the old fashioned six-shooter came from, but the accident recalls a past incident in which the Sharks, a group of high school boys that included Brad Davis, Chip Brown, Sharpy Brock, Tad Bailey, and Spud Dirk, pulled a prank that could have been deadly. Years ago, when several Sharks pretended as a joke to rob a convenience store in which Brad was working, Brad pulled a real gun and fired but hit nothing more vital than the Frozen Rainbow Machine. Now Brad’s the president of the VanHorn–Davis Foundation, whose charitable donations underwrite many improvements to the Michigan lakeside town of Warner Pier. When Lee accompanies Hogan to the Bailey house to show him where the gun was, they find more than they bargained for—Spud’s corpse in a cupboard. Although Hogan’s the police chief, he must stay out of the investigation because Spud had been competing with him to buy the Bailey house. So Lee, who’d prefer to stick to chocolates, is forced to join Joe in detective work.
A run-of-the-mill mystery that includes some welcome tips on the health benefits of chocolate.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-10000-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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