A slight variation on the whodunit—a whomightdoit—but with all the trimmings of a satisfyingly complex murder mystery.
In Fritze’s debut legal thriller, the undiplomatic actions of an antitrust lawyer in Toronto may result in murder—namely his own.
Someone wants to see attorney Peter Bradley dead. Cryptic journal entries, revealed only to the reader, detail an unknown party’s animosity for Bradley, but there’s certainly no shortage of people with motives for murder. Walter, a member of Bradley’s antitrust group at his firm, keeps getting passed over for partnership; Bradley’s wife, Amy, is on a short financial leash; and his brother-in-law, Reggie, a struggling musician, doesn’t appreciate how his sister is being treated. But Bradley has problems of a different sort: Managing partners have pushed Tony, whom Bradley hates, to be his successor as the group’s chair; Bradley’s uncovered discrepancies in his bank account; and he learns that Amy is frequenting Maximus, a swingers club. If Bradley has any hope of overcoming his odds, he’ll have to straighten quite a few things out—as long as someone doesn’t straighten him out first. This mystery doesn’t let up; the identity of the journal writer is neither revealed early nor blatantly obvious. In fact, the potential murderer seems of sound mind, debating both the legal and psychological ramifications of killing Bradley. It’s Bradley who’s off-kilter, obsessively watching his wife, who openly flirts with his colleagues, and eventually concocting a plan that’s just as dangerous as the diarist’s but much more methodical. Fritze’s strongest scenes aren’t ones of violence (though there are several of those) but manipulation: Bradley meets with Tony and fakes elation about the attorney joining the firm; Amy pretends to dote on her husband so that he’ll log onto his bank’s website, giving her a chance to learn his password. A school of red herrings is expected to accompany a cast this large, but the author successfully wraps up a good number of them. He further develops the lead character with a full back story: His first wife died, and he had an abusive, alcoholic father.
A slight variation on the whodunit—a whomightdoit—but with all the trimmings of a satisfyingly complex murder mystery.Pub Date: March 24, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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A straightforward and pleasant, if somewhat predictable narrative, marred in part by an ending that too blatantly tugs at...
An iteration of a quintessential American myth—immigrants come to America and experience economic exploitation and the seamy side of urban life, but education and pluck ultimately lead to success.
Twelve-year-old Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong and feel lucky to get out before the transfer to the Chinese. Because Mrs. Chang’s older sister owns a garment factory in Brooklyn, she offers Kimberly’s mother—and even Kimberly—a “good job” bagging skirts as well as a place to live in a nearby apartment. Of course, both of these “gifts” turn out to be exploitative, for to make ends meet Mrs. Chang winds up working 12-hour–plus days in the factory. Kimberly joins her after school hours in this hot and exhausting labor, and the apartment is teeming with roaches. In addition, the start to Kimberly’s sixth-grade year is far from prepossessing, for she’s shy and speaks almost no English, but she turns out to be a whiz at math and science. The following year she earns a scholarship to a prestigious private school. Her academic gifts are so far beyond those of her fellow students that eventually she’s given a special oral exam to make sure she’s not cheating. (She’s not.) Playing out against the background of Kimberly’s fairly predictable school success (she winds up going to Yale on full scholarship and then to Harvard medical school) are the stages of her development, which include interactions with Matt, her hunky Chinese-American boyfriend, who works at the factory, drops out of school and wants to provide for her; Curt, her hunky Anglo boyfriend, who’s dumb but sweet; and Annette, her loyal friend from the time they’re in sixth grade. Throughout the stress of adolescence, Kimberly must also negotiate the tension between her mother’s embarrassing old-world ways and the allurement of American culture.
A straightforward and pleasant, if somewhat predictable narrative, marred in part by an ending that too blatantly tugs at the heartstrings.Pub Date: May 4, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59448-756-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2010
With characters you care for, a smooth, engaging plot and an interesting reflection on values and success, romance/women’s...
Sonnet Romano has spent her adult years working hard to make a name for herself out in the real world, far away from her idyllic hometown, Willow Lake. But when life takes some unexpected turns, she may just realize that everything she’s been looking for is right back where she started.
Sonnet has checked off most of the big boxes on her "must-do-before-age-thirty" list, and she’s over-the-moon about her life in Manhattan, her job with UNESCO and the opportunities on the horizon from winning a prestigious international program fellowship. But everything comes to a screeching halt when she learns her newly married mother—who had Sonnet as a teenager and raised her as a single mom—is pregnant and sick. Forsaking the fellowship, Sonnet moves back to Willow Lake to be with her mother, risking disapproval from her father, who’s running for the U.S. Senate, and her fledgling boyfriend, who’s working on her father’s campaign. She accepts a job on a reality show being shot in the town, featuring an infamous female rapper and bunch of inner-city kids, and learns that her estranged best friend has been hired as the lead cameraman. Sonnet and Zach have been friends forever, but he is part of her past, and they are on different paths in life. Despite a sizzling newfound attraction between them, she wants her mom to get well, the baby to be born and the show to be wrapped, so she can get back to the city and her own fast track to the successful, prestigious future she’s always worked toward. But slowing down has a funny way of forcing Sonnet to take stock, and maybe her idea of a perfect life will alter with a little help from the old and new important people in her life and the picture-perfect town she grew up in.
With characters you care for, a smooth, engaging plot and an interesting reflection on values and success, romance/women’s fiction favorite Wiggs sends up another charming winner in the Lakeshore Chronicles series.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1384-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2012
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