This caper from Campbell is just that: ridiculous relatives running around and covering up crime after crime. A good read if...
Leaving a life of crime isn’t easy when your kooky mob family keeps inundating you with the dead.
Now that she’s sworn off crime for almost an entire week, Gina Gallo (The Artful Goddaughter, 2014, etc.) can turn to planning her Christmastime wedding to Pete, her fiance. But when you’ve grown up with crime, it knows where to find you, or at least your Family with a capital F. That’s what Gina tries to tell herself when she and cousin Nico’s wedding-planning bonanza at the family’s restaurant, La Paloma, is interrupted by Aunt Vera’s complaint about the dead body in the kitchen. Just because she knows the identity of the deceased, an old high school no-goodnik named Wally, doesn’t mean Gina has anything to do with his plugged corpse. It doesn’t matter whether or not she’s gone straight: Gina ends up with Wally in her trunk en route to the chop shop once more to avoid the suspicious attentions of local Steeltown cop and adversary Rick Spenser. All this is only the beginning, because the very next day Nico and Gina find another corpse in place of a statue Nico had ordered through the mail. In getting rid of this body and hiding out from Spense, Nico and Gina come upon a large cache of coffins in the family hideaway, a find that suggests that Gina’s almost crime-free lifestyle isn’t contagious. Gina was hoping the biggest surprise she would have sprung on her would involve her bridal shower, but maybe her relatives have something more they aren’t telling her….
This caper from Campbell is just that: ridiculous relatives running around and covering up crime after crime. A good read if you don’t take it too seriously.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1053-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Raven Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is secondhand tough-guy stuff, memorable only in that it feels like you've read it all before.
A former mob enforcer–turned–private eye is called in to investigate the savage murder of a Mafia leg-breaker in New York's Hudson Valley and finds himself on the trail of corporate espionage and a serial killer long believed dead.
The second book in Barron's series featuring Isaiah Coleridge (Blood Standard, 2018) seems, more than the debut, an obvious attempt to establish Coleridge as a strongman smartass in the Jack Reacher mold. The fight scenes are the written equivalent of action-movie choreography but without suspense, because the setup—Isaiah being constantly outnumbered—is so clearly a prelude for the no-sweat beat downs he doles out to the various thugs who get in his way. There's nary a memorable wisecrack in the entire book. What does stick in the mind are the sections that go out of their way to be writerly. It's not enough to say that it was a starry night in the Alaskan wilderness. Coleridge (the name is a clue to the series' literary aspirations) says, "I could've read a book by the cascading illumination of the stars." A later flash of insight is conveyed by "The scalpel of grim epiphany sliced into my consciousness." What with the narrative that spreads like spider cracks in glass and the far-too-frequent flashbacks to the man who was Coleridge's mentor, you might wish another scalpel had made its way through the manuscript.
This is secondhand tough-guy stuff, memorable only in that it feels like you've read it all before.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-1289-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not exactly groundbreaking, but fans will enjoy this cozy Christmas addition to a long-running series.
Christmas is nigh, and there’s a murder to solve.
Inspector Nivens may have ambitions far beyond his local posting, but he’s so hapless as a detective that it’s no surprise when he loses a sensitive case involving the murder of well-to-do Margaret Starling in her yard to Inspector Gerald Witherspoon of the Metropolitan Police. Witherspoon, whose record is stellar, is independently wealthy, good-natured, and unaware that for years his staff and friends, especially his clever housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, have fed him the clues that have been indispensable in closing his murder cases (Mrs. Jeffries Delivers the Goods, 2019, etc.). Determined to solve the puzzle of Margaret’s murder before Christmas, Witherspoon’s staff scatter throughout the neighborhood of the Starling residence, each of them searching for clues using their questioning methods tailored to every social stratum of Victorian London, from the housemaid to the well-heeled neighbors. Margaret’s recent odd behavior seems to have something to do with the Angel Alms Society of Fulham and Putney, where she was a generous donor who served on the advisory board. She was also suing Mrs. Huxton, her next-door neighbor, whom she accused of trying to ruin her reputation. Alibis are tested and possible enemies questioned. The suspects range from that neighbor to Margaret’s deceased niece’s husband to the vicar of St. Andrew’s Church, all of whom have reason to be angry with her. Mrs. Jeffries struggles to get on the right track as other members of the amateur detective group pass information to Witherspoon’s constable, who’s in on their scheme. It all comes down to love or money.
Not exactly groundbreaking, but fans will enjoy this cozy Christmas addition to a long-running series.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-451-49224-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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