Sears introduces a new hero to his world of high-finance thrillers: a soiled, likable Queens ex-lawyer whose highly questionable business practices are radically challenged by the murder of his partner.
Ted Molloy wouldn’t actually call Richie Rubiano his partner, but now that he can’t practice law anymore, his livelihood depends on negotiating bailouts on behalf of the principals whose properties reformed lowlife Little Richie has identified as subject to foreclosure. The latest case Richie’s turned up could be worth $1.2 million—enough to scare away Ted, who’s consistently gotten burned when he’s ventured much over his $50,000 limit, and evidently enough to get Richie shot to death. Ted, true to form, is inclined to walk away, but Richie’s feisty widow, city employee Cheryl Rubiano, demands that he deliver the $1.2 million Richie identified and incidentally find his killer. Working with Lester Young McKinley, a beguiling title insurance investigator who steps into Richie’s shoes all too easily, Ted soon tracks down Barbara Miller, the 93-year-old owner of several properties coveted by Ronald Reisner, the wealthy developer determined to erect a monster multiuse tower backed by Queens councilman Kevin Pak and opposed by a legions of locals. The most weighty of many complications is that Reisner’s attorney and bagman, Jacqueline Clavette, is married to Jill Fitzmaurice, the ex-wife Ted, back on friendly terms with her, would do anything to avoid estranging again. Or almost anything, as the explosive complications that follow make clear.
Even if you’re not already sold on Queens, Sears makes real estate law as sexy and dangerous as international intrigue.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64129-195-8
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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Silva’s latest Gabriel Allon novel is a bit of a throwback—in the best possible way.
One-time assassin and legendary spymaster Gabriel Allon has finally retired. After saying farewell to his friends and colleagues in Israel, he moves with his wife, Chiara, and their two young children to a piano nobile overlooking Venice’s Grand Canal. His plan is to return to the workshop where he learned to restore paintings as an employee—but only after he spends several weeks recovering from the bullet wound that left him dead for several minutes in The Cellist (2021). Of course, no one expects Gabriel to entirely withdraw from the field, and, sure enough, a call from his friend and occasional asset Julian Isherwood sends him racing around the globe on the trail of art forgers who are willing to kill to protect their extremely lucrative enterprise. Silva provides plenty of thrills and, as usual, offers a glimpse into the lifestyles of the outrageously wealthy. In the early books in this series, it was Gabriel’s work as an art restorer that set him apart from other action heroes, and his return to that world is the most rewarding part of this installment. It is true that, at this point in his storied career, Gabriel has become a nearly mythic figure. And Silva is counting on a lot of love—and willing suspension of disbelief—when Gabriel whips up four old master canvases that fool the world’s leading art experts as a lure for the syndicate selling fake paintings. That said, as Silva explains in an author’s note, the art market is rife with secrecy, subterfuge, and wishful thinking, in no small part because it is almost entirely unregulated. And, if anyone can crank out a Titian, a Tintoretto, a Gentileschi, and a Veronese in a matter of days, it’s Gabriel Allon. The author’s longtime fans may breathe a sigh of relief that this entry is relatively free of politics and the pandemic is nowhere in sight.
A smart summer escape.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-283485-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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June 2061 is a perilous time for women in a downtown Manhattan neighborhood who happen to resemble a violent kidnapper’s mother.
The killer doesn’t seem to be trying to hide anything except his own identity. Ten days after snatching bartender Lauren Elder from the street as she walked home, he leaves her body, carefully dressed and made up, with even the gash in her throat meticulously stitched up and beribboned, where it’s sure to be found quickly, along with the chilling label “bad mommy.” When Lt. Eve Dallas and Detective Delia Peabody realize that Anna Hobe, a server at a nearby karaoke bar who disappeared a week ago under similar circumstances, was probably another victim of the same perp, the clock begins ticking down even before they learn that assistant marketing manager Mary Kate Covino has gone missing as well. Dallas, Peabody, and the helpers who’ve made Robb’s long-lived franchise even more distinctive than its futuristic setting race to find the women or identify their kidnapper before he reverts once again to the 5-year-old abandoned by his mother many years ago. The emphasis this time is on investigative procedure, forensics (beginning with the Party Girl perfume and the Toot Sweet moisturizer the murderer uses on the corpses of his victims), and the broader danger women in every generation face from men who just can’t grow up.
A rarity: a police procedural more deeply invested in the victims than either the killer or the police.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2502-7821-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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