An enjoyable and intriguing novel that will keep readers engaged until the final page.
Miller offers a romantic mystery that dives deep into Long Island history.
Luce Porter is a TV producer whose tongue is as sharp as her wit. She’s had her share of romantic missteps, and at this point, no man can get under her skin—well, almost no man. Andy Holman, a gorgeous New York City police detective who arrested her for a minor infraction 10 years prior, still manages to push her buttons. He uses personal connections to score invites for Luce and her TV crew—including her new intern, Kat Downing—to the Annual Ghost Ship Mystery Dinner, hosted by eccentric society matriarch Adeline Bowers on Long Island Sound. They learn about “the Phantom,” aka the MorningStar, a ship that vanished off the coast of Long Island in 1790, allegedly resulting in the deaths of all but one of the passengers onboard. It’s contents and purpose were unknown, but clues suggest that it was involved in the slave trade. Many people have claimed sightings of the vessel over the years. As Luce and Andy try to unravel the mystery of the MorningStar, they run into people who are determined to bury the truth—and possibly anyone standing in their way. Miller presents a tightly written mystery that will keep readers guessing as well as a romance that’s full of sassy banter and sexual tension. But her novel offers much more, as she bases the story on the actual history of the Execution Rocks Light, a lighthouse with a complicated legacy, and reveals uncommon knowledge about the North’s involvement in the buying and selling of enslaved people. It also addresses disability-related issues that Kat, who uses a wheelchair, faces in her daily life. Overall, Miller delivers a story that’s substantial and relevant despite its lighthearted moments. Some may find the resolution of Luce and Andy’s romance unsatisfying, but the happy ending will have readers excited for a potential sequel.
An enjoyable and intriguing novel that will keep readers engaged until the final page.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73610-110-0
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Pendant Cove
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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