It's a mystery how Stanley Hastings gets the chance to chase those ambulances: he's constantly spending his time talking himself out of murder raps. Here, Stanley starts off by compounding a felony in taking Marlena Smith's $500 for paying off a blackmailer who's peddling pornographic photos she doesn't even bother to look at (maybe because she wasn't one of the subjects?), then repeats the offense, this time for $1,000, when she asks him to get the negatives. At the rendezvous, Stanley finds a dead body—but instead of being Barry the blackmailer, it's Marlena. (Barry, who turns out to be sporadically employed actor Cliff McFadgen, isn't killed until an hour or so later- -and, yes, Stanley stumbles on his body too.) After Stanley spends a night in the drunk tank when he can't reach his boss, negligence lawyer Richard Rosenberg; withholds evidence about the people in the photos from the police; and insists on running his own, utterly hopeless investigation instead—is it any wonder his nemesis, Sgt. Thurman, battens on Stanley? Stanley's sad-sack adventures (Actor, 1993, etc.) usually start with a terrific idea and then gradually peter out. Not this time. Every page quivers with comic frustration, and the result is an absolute joy.
Pub Date: March 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-89296-521-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1994
A comic-book thrill ride with the added appeal of bear shifters falling in love.
Bear shifters battle their attraction and awkward flirtations while trying to stop a criminal focused on terrorizing young shifters.
Annette Garsea is one of the hardest and most dedicated caseworkers at the Interspecies Placement Agency of Minnesota, a foster care system for shifter species. It’s her job to find homes and resources for at-risk shifter youth and children. At times, her work brings her within close proximity of private investigator David Auberon. Both are bear shifters with an obvious connection, but Annette thinks she’s too busy for a relationship, and David can’t seem to say more than five words to Annette before getting tongue-tied. It takes a shifter baby in grave danger to give the two bears the nudge they need to graduate from strictly business to something way more than friends. Davidson’s (Deja New, 2017, etc.) trademark goofiness, over-the-top action scenes, and fierce heroines are all accounted for along with a memorable cast of characters, though her books can be an acquired taste for readers who prefer their shifters growly and full of angst. David is a sweetheart with a long-standing crush on Annette; in his mind, she’s way out of his league. He’s also supportive and completely comfortable letting Annette shine as the fearsome mama bear. The pair are wonderfully matched, whether they’re watching each other’s backs in the midst of danger or being two utter cornballs once they let their feelings show. There's some of the cadence of old Hollywood banter in how they speak and what they say—except they can both shift into huge bears. Despite more serious themes like homelessness, kidnapping, and violence, it’s very much a Marvel movie–type paranormal romance with all the action and none of the detailed, gruesome bloodshed.
A comic-book thrill ride with the added appeal of bear shifters falling in love.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-9701-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Too much psychobabble, technobabble, and envirobabble, yet the appeal of the young sleuths (smart, funny, tough) almost...
A cunning serial killer plays devilish mind games with his would-be captors—and what else is new?
Not much. Well, he does have this penchant for pluralizing. That is, he grabs his young women in pairs. Why pairs? He uses corpse one for the planting of clues sufficient to allow law enforcement—if law enforcement is astute enough—to find corpse two alive. “Eco-Killer,” he’s been tabbed because in addition to his passion for gamesmanship, he seems to have an ongoing love-hate relationship with the environment. From Georgia, scene of the first killings, we shift to Virginia, where Special Agent Mac McCormack of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been on the case from the outset. He’s been directed to Virginia by a barrage of enigmatic phone calls from someone who claims to know how the serial killer’s sly and twisted mind works. In Quantico, a training ground for FBI agents as well as for US Marines, Mac meets fledgling feebie Kimberly Quincy, daughter of former agent Pierce Quincy, famous throughout the service for his legendary exploits as a profiler. When the Eco-Killer strikes again, Quincy and his p.i. partner Lorraine Conner, mainstays of the series, (The Next Accident, 2001, etc.), are called in to consult, but the case really belongs to the captivating Kimberly and hunkish Mac (with their bods for sex and brains for high-powered detecting). Convinced there’s a chance to save a life if they can manage to solve the killer’s puzzle in time, the two desperately seek clues from botanists, biologists, entomologists, and a variety of other analysts. Something from here, something from there, and at last they can make the guess that plunges them deep into Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, where the game plays out to a fiery end.
Too much psychobabble, technobabble, and envirobabble, yet the appeal of the young sleuths (smart, funny, tough) almost saves the day.Pub Date: July 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-553-80252-6
Page Count: 325
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
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