Nobody makes coincidences seem as likely or as deadly as Oldham, who tempers all this mayhem with a new romantic...
A terrorist hunt collides with a homicidal rapist’s spree.
Blackpool Detective Supt. Henry Christie is surveying the crime scene of a raped and murdered teenager when he witnesses the duly warranted shooting of a suspected terrorist sought by MI5, MI6, SIS, Special Branch, Counter Terrorism and his old pal Karl Donaldson, a supersleuth doing undercover work as a legate at the American embassy. While the agencies bicker over which has jurisdiction, another suspected terrorist is collared with bombs strapped to his chest and a detonator in his hand. Does that account for everyone? Donaldson thinks he winged another perp, slowing but not stopping his getaway. Blood droplets and airport security identify him as Jamil Akram, who runs terrorist camps in Yemen, instructs aspiring suicide bombers, and plans events for maximum public outrage and fear. Jamil hustles himself to Gambia, where Boone, a semi-retired smuggler, eventually realizes that the man he’s agreed to pick up is worth a lot more than the sum he agreed on. His blackmail buys him a gruesome, watery grave, the brutalization of his girlfriend Michelle and a spot of vengeance engineered by his drinking buddy Steve Flynn, an ex-cop in Christie’s squad who now takes on fishing charters. Meanwhile, Christie learns that one of the four different sperm deposits in his teenage victim matches Jamil’s DNA. As Christie, Donaldson and Flynn (Facing Justice, 2011, etc.) share information, skullduggery most British comes into play, with more deaths and a cover-up in the offing.
Nobody makes coincidences seem as likely or as deadly as Oldham, who tempers all this mayhem with a new romantic entanglement for recent widower Christie, but also staves off his retirement with the adrenaline rush of the chase.Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8132-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally...
Yale’s secret societies hide a supernatural secret in this fantasy/murder mystery/school story.
Most Yale students get admitted through some combination of impressive academics, athletics, extracurriculars, family connections, and donations, or perhaps bribing the right coach. Not Galaxy “Alex” Stern. The protagonist of Bardugo’s (King of Scars, 2019, etc.) first novel for adults, a high school dropout and low-level drug dealer, Alex got in because she can see dead people. A Yale dean who's a member of Lethe, one of the college’s famously mysterious secret societies, offers Alex a free ride if she will use her spook-spotting abilities to help Lethe with its mission: overseeing the other secret societies’ occult rituals. In Bardugo’s universe, the “Ancient Eight” secret societies (Lethe is the eponymous Ninth House) are not just old boys’ breeding grounds for the CIA, CEOs, Supreme Court justices, and so on, as they are in ours; they’re wielders of actual magic. Skull and Bones performs prognostications by borrowing patients from the local hospital, cutting them open, and examining their entrails. St. Elmo’s specializes in weather magic, useful for commodities traders; Aurelian, in unbreakable contracts; Manuscript goes in for glamours, or “illusions and lies,” helpful to politicians and movie stars alike. And all these rituals attract ghosts. It’s Alex’s job to keep the supernatural forces from embarrassing the magical elite by releasing chaos into the community (all while trying desperately to keep her grades up). “Dealing with ghosts was like riding the subway: Do not make eye contact. Do not smile. Do not engage. Otherwise, you never know what might follow you home.” A townie’s murder sets in motion a taut plot full of drug deals, drunken assaults, corruption, and cover-ups. Loyalties stretch and snap. Under it all runs the deep, dark river of ambition and anxiety that at once powers and undermines the Yale experience. Alex may have more reason than most to feel like an imposter, but anyone who’s spent time around the golden children of the Ivy League will likely recognize her self-doubt.
With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31307-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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