This last problem may sound like a thorny ethical dilemma, but it’s just as weightless as every other complication in this...
What the title promises is exactly what Margolin (Worthy Brown’s Daughter, 2014, etc.) delivers: another torrent of violent crimes for Oregon defense attorney Amanda Jaffe.
Christine Larson, of Masterson, Hamilton, Rickman, and Thomas, wants Amanda to defend Tom Beatty, a former Navy SEAL with PTSD who’s working as a paralegal at the firm. Harold Roux, a bully who started a bar fight with Beatty, has sworn out a complaint from his hospital bed. Amanda gets the charge dismissed without breaking a sweat, unaware that the real trouble is just beginning. Someone murders Christine, plants her body in Beatty’s place, and sends Detective Greg Nowicki, of Portland Narcotics, there on a trumped-up tip that Beatty’s selling heroin. The cops pick up Beatty, but Amanda assures him she’ll get bail for him, because she’s certain Christine was killed by Dale Masterson, Mark Hamilton, or one of the other higher-ups in the firm whose falsified financial statements Christine had been looking into. Amanda, as good as her word, springs Beatty from police custody just in time for Masterson to get murdered. The presumption of Beatty’s guilt would be overwhelming if only Dale’s son, Brandon, hadn’t been spotted running from the murder scene covered in blood. In fact, Brandon, an environmental activist bent on using his trial as a platform to broadcast his father’s misdeeds to the world, is only too eager to confess to the murder, but Amanda doesn’t believe him, and soon enough she’s gotten herself hired as his attorney even though getting him off may involve implicating Beatty, who’s also her client.
This last problem may sound like a thorny ethical dilemma, but it’s just as weightless as every other complication in this fleet, guileless, inch-deep yarn, a tale guaranteed to get you to bed in plenty of time and leave your dreams untroubled.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-226655-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
A spellbinding thriller perfect for those dark and stormy nights.
Drenched with seawater, bleeding from a head wound, and missing his memory, a man awakens on Holkham Beach in Norfolk, England. Written on his hand is a clue, but a clue to what? His identity? Or something more sinister?
Once taken to the hospital, the man initially called Mr. Nobody is dubbed Matthew, and although he cannot speak, brain scans reveal no physical trauma. When the leading neuropsychiatrist is unable to take on the case, he recommends Emma Lewis, who is eager to seize the chance to prove her new theories about fugue states. True fugue states are rare, but Matthew’s case seems authentic, and his brain scans share an odd anomaly with a previous case from years ago. Yet taking on Matthew’s care requires signing nondisclosure forms, leaving Emma wondering who is protecting this man. Worse, for the first time in 14 years, Emma will have to travel back to Norfolk, where something happened that left her so traumatized that she and her family needed new names. Once there, Emma reunites with Chris Poole, an old friend from school who’s now working for the police department. Romance sparkles, but Chris’ journalist wife, Zara, may hold cards spelling trouble not only for Emma, but also Matthew. Steadman (Something in the Water, 2018) once again brilliantly paces the action from the very first scene: a car wreck about to happen at whiplash-inducing speed. With each step, confusion descends, blurring the path forward with deliciously gothic twists. As in all good thrillers, lights unexpectedly snap out, a creepy house is hidden down a tree-woven lane, and long-buried secrets emerge. As Emma takes charge of her patient, his memories slowly entangle their pasts together, and exposing those secrets may imperil Emma’s very life.
A spellbinding thriller perfect for those dark and stormy nights.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9768-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Refreshingly, entertainingly creepy and with nary a fava bean in sight.
Morbid mysterian Harris (Hannibal Rising, 2006, etc.) returns with a trademark mix of murderous psychopaths and morally iffy good guys.
Lesson No. 1: Don’t mess with a determined Colombian woman, especially not one with combat experience and no fear of dying. The title character is a case in point: 25, pretty, though with scars that speak to a terrible past. Under the watchful eye of the immigration authorities, she works several jobs, including managing a luxurious Miami property with a murky title, a property that was once owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar and under which he tucked away a trove of gold ingots. Enter Hans-Peter Schneider, a decidedly nasty fellow in the tradition of other Harris villains. Hans-Peter has fangs with “silver in them that shows when he smiles” and is otherwise rather vampiric in aspect, and he has a thing for harvesting organs and selling women into slavery. He’s after that gold, and Cari is a mere inconvenience to be dealt with in due time, minus a limb or two, perhaps. So it is with Cari’s pool cleaner friend Antonio, anyway, who winds up an object of Hans-Peter’s attention: “These were Antonio’s legs. That was Antonio’s torso. His head was missing.” Things get ickier still as heads explode, bob around in liquid cremation machines, and otherwise undergo assorted unpleasantries. Hans-Peter isn’t the only one after the gold, of course, and then there are the rising waters thanks to climate change, waters that have burrowed their way under the mansion. It’s a race against time—and crocodiles, and all the other ways of dying unhappily in South Florida. It’s vintage Harris, with nice twists and elegant ways of expressing just how bad bad people can be. Suffice it to say that, as the story winds to a blood-soaked close, some of the principals probably won’t be showing up in a sequel.
Refreshingly, entertainingly creepy and with nary a fava bean in sight.Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-5014-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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