Less successful than others in this series (Unraveled Visions, 2014, etc.), partly because both Milton’s villain and heroine...
The mysterious death of a woman in a shamanic group leads one of her colleagues to launch a full-bore investigation on earthly and other planes.
A group of people interested in shamanism has gathered to celebrate life on Midsummer Eve atop Glastonbury Tor when an unexpected tragedy occurs. Alys, a newcomer who’s been dancing all night, appears to be struck down amid the celebration. In the ensuing confusion, it’s unclear whether Alys’ death was accidental or caused by something more mysterious, and her husband, Brice, implores experienced shaman Sabbie Dare to help him understand what’s happened. Sabbie isn’t sure where to start, since Brice is not a believer in the occult and doesn’t trust any of the community. Though Sabbie is a member of said community, even she isn’t sure whom to trust when it’s implied that someone may have drugged Alys with malice aforethought. Sabbie wants to rely on her main squeeze, police detective Rey Buckley, but she’s having trouble even getting him to commit to communicating with her at the boyfriend/partner level, much less helping her investigate. There may be something more afoot with him, but he’s not one to fill Sabbie in. In a world where she isn’t sure which way to turn for help, Sabbie forswears human assistance and enters her spiritual realm with her trusty otter guide, Trendle, hoping he can show her something not visible on the earthly plane. It may be something Trendle is hinting at that relates Alys’ death to creepy emails Brice keeps receiving from a supposed Morgan le Fay. Is Alys’ death connected to ancient tales of King Arthur’s Round Table? Readers may still be wondering when the tale ends.
Less successful than others in this series (Unraveled Visions, 2014, etc.), partly because both Milton’s villain and heroine are insufficiently sketched to draw one in, partly perhaps because she’s trying to do too much at once.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7387-4382-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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