A masterly procedural with erudite characters and a nasty sting in the tail.
Several grisly murders provide a thorny problem for experienced detectives.
DI Sarah Gilchrist and DS Bellamy Heap of the Brighton division are seconded to the short-staffed Lewes District just in time to catch the case of a body in a lake. The neighbor who found the dead man, his throat cut, identifies him as Maj. Richard Rabbitt, owner of the Plumpton Down Estate but not the lake, which belongs to Nimue Grace, whom Bellamy immediately recognizes as a well-known actress who’s gone into seclusion. Rabbitt was much disliked by his neighbors; his estranged wife, Liesl, and his sister, Tallulah, were no great fans either. They learn from Tallulah that Rabbitt and his putative business partners, Said Farzi and William Simpson, were trying to buy Nimue’s property. Simpson is well known to them as a smooth crook who almost ruined Gilchrist’s career and that of her former lover, Brighton Police Commissioner Bob Watts (Swimming With the Dead, 2019, etc.). When they interview Nimue, they find her more than willing to help and are soon under the spell of her stunning beauty, charm, and considerable intellect. But dredging her lake reveals nothing more than a group of empty white plastic containers firmly attached to the shore which Nimue denies ever having seen. Farzi is not only Nimue’s apparently wealthy neighbor, but also a slum landlord and a major danger to her. When a man is found beaten to death in one of Farzi’s Brighton apartments, the police suspect that Farzi and Simpson are involved in importing drugs and slave laborers. Gilchrist and Heap are assigned to solve the Brighton murder while a very stupid colleague is switched to Rabbitt’s case, but, refusing to leave Nimue’s fate in his hands, they slyly keep up their investigation into what turns out to be a complex series of deep-rooted crimes.
A masterly procedural with erudite characters and a nasty sting in the tail.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8967-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Even readers who identify the criminal, motive, and modus operandi early on (and many readers will) can plan to stay up long...
Soldier-turned-soldier-of-fortune Jack Reacher goes after a serial killer in a conventionally but nonetheless deeply satisfying whodunit.
In today's armed services, you lose even when you win—at least if you're a woman who files a sexual harassment complaint. Amy Callan and Caroline Cooke were both successful in their suits, which ended the careers of their alleged harassers. But Callan and Cooke ended up leaving the service themselves, and now they're both dead, murdered by a diabolical perp who keeps leaving behind the same crime scene—the victim's body submerged in a bathtub filled with camouflage paint—and not a single clue to the killer's identity or the cause of death. The FBI hauls in Reacher, who handled both women's complaints as an Army MP, as a prime suspect, then offers to upgrade him to a consulting investigator when their own surveillance gives him an alibi for a third killing. No thanks, says our hero, who's taken an instant dislike to FBI profiler Julia Lamarr, until the Feds' threats against his lawyer girlfriend Jodie Jacob (Tripwire, 1999) bring him into the fold. While Reacher is pretending to study lists of potential victims and suspects and fending off the government-sponsored advances of Quantico's comely Lisa Harper, the murderer is getting ready to pounce on a fourth victim: Lamarr's stepsister Alison. This latest coup does nothing to improve relations between Reacher and the Feebees, all of them determined to prove they're the toughest hombres in the parking lot, but it does set the stage for some honest sleuthing, some treacherous red herrings, and some convincing evidence for Reacher's assertion that all that profiling stuff is just plain common sense.
Even readers who identify the criminal, motive, and modus operandi early on (and many readers will) can plan to stay up long past bedtime and do some serious hyperventilating toward the end.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-399-14623-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2000
An amusingly complex con combines with little-known historical details to provide an enchanting read.
A determined woman seeks justice.
Elizabeth Miles had a disreputable past as a grifter, but a chance friendship with Mrs. Bates, a suffragette, introduced her into New York society, and now she’s engaged to her friend's son, Gideon Bates, a straight-arrow lawyer. While Gideon is waiting to be called up to serve in the Great War, Cpl. Thomas Preston asks him to draft a new will leaving Thomas’ money and his one-third share in Preston Shoe Manufacturing to his pregnant new wife, Rose O’Dell, instead of his older brother, Fred, who currently shares ownership of the company with Thomas and Delia, their young, widowed stepmother. Since Rose is not the sort the Preston family would approve of, Gideon writes the will in secret, naming himself executor, and Thomas leaves it with Rose. All too soon thereafter, an angry Fred Preston barges into Gideon’s office saying that his brother is dead and his brother's widow claims to be the heir. Refusing to reveal his client’s business, Gideon visits Rose’s apartment, where he runs into the bruiser who attempted to strangle her and stole the only signed copy of the will. It’s clear that neither Fred nor his stepmother will help Rose, whom Elizabeth moves to her aunt’s house, where she and several other progressive women live, knowing that she’ll be safe. When neither threats of court cases nor attempts to shame Fred work, Elizabeth turns to her brother and father, the Old Man, and their talented group of con men (City of Secrets, 2018, etc.) to find a way to raise money for Rose and the coming child. Disapproving of war profiteers and men who hurt women, the group comes up with a clever plan that will make Rose rich and pay them something for their efforts. They stumble into the American Protective League, a nest of German spies, and a still more dangerous enemy in the Spanish flu, which will kill vast numbers all over the globe.
An amusingly complex con combines with little-known historical details to provide an enchanting read.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0565-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
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