An effervescent ride chock-full of memorable action and characters.
A Texas sheriff tries to take down a drug lord pushing cocaine across the Mexican-U.S. border and winds up dodging bullets in Cuba and the Cayman Islands in Reneau’s (Ruby Silver, 2014, etc.) latest thriller.
When pilot and marijuana transporter Wes Stoddard tells Cameron County Sheriff Hardin Steel that he wants to go straight, the sheriff asks for a trade-off: Wes can help the DEA get his boss, Frederick Ochoa. But their plan for Wes to sell DEA-confiscated cocaine back to Ochoa backfires when Russian Alexsie Yazov, who works for Ochoa, decides to steal the coke and, for good measure, kidnap Rory Roughton, daughter of an oil tycoon and Hardin’s sometimes-girlfriend. Yazov, however, doesn’t release Rory, despite a paid ransom. So Hardin, Wes and PI Buck Bateman initiate a rescue mission in Cuba, made even more dangerous by the fact that Ochoa, still pissed about his missing cocaine, is invested in killing all of them. The novel often feels like a series of action scenes, one trailing after the other: A sting operation begets a double-cross begets retaliation and so on. Where Reneau truly excels is the action: Hardin and his pals enact blistering sequences, from a high-speed boat chase to a quick escape in a seaplane. And these scenes are rife with shocks, as one of the criminals (much worse than Wes) makes an unlikely ally for Hardin (readers should be wary of getting too attached to Hardin’s buddies). Regardless of all of the gunfire, as well as the occasional surface-to-air missile, the story generally takes on its protagonist’s easygoing nature. It’s a lighthearted affair, even considering that there are contracts out on Hardin, Wes and Buck (Hardin calls the trio “contractees”). But there’s also a visceral moment or two, because a torturer, like many of the book’s characters, will probably suffer a violent reprisal. Reneau concludes the story with a hint that something (or maybe someone) is pending and will return, welcome or not, in Book 2.
An effervescent ride chock-full of memorable action and characters.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497342477
Page Count: 354
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that...
Twenty-four years after a traumatic disappearance tore a Georgia family apart, Slaughter’s scorching stand-alone picks them up and shreds them all over again.
The Carrolls have never been the same since 19-year-old Julia vanished. After years of fruitlessly pestering the police, her veterinarian father, Sam, killed himself; her librarian mother, Helen, still keeps the girl's bedroom untouched, just in case. Julia’s sisters have been equally scarred. Lydia Delgado has sold herself for drugs countless times, though she’s been clean for years now; Claire Scott has just been paroled after knee-capping her tennis partner for a thoughtless remark. The evening that Claire’s ankle bracelet comes off, her architect husband, Paul, is callously murdered before her eyes and, without a moment's letup, she stumbles on a mountainous cache of snuff porn. Paul’s business partner, Adam Quinn, demands information from Claire and threatens her with dire consequences if she doesn’t deliver. The Dunwoody police prove as ineffectual as ever. FBI agent Fred Nolan is more suavely menacing than helpful. So Lydia and Claire, who’ve grown so far apart that they’re virtual strangers, are unwillingly thrown back on each other for help. Once she’s plunged you into this maelstrom, Slaughter shreds your own nerves along with those of the sisters, not simply by a parade of gruesome revelations—though she supplies them in abundance—but by peeling back layer after layer from beloved family members Claire and Lydia thought they knew. The results are harrowing.
Slaughter (Cop Town, 2014, etc.) is so uncompromising in following her blood trails to the darkest places imaginable that she makes most of her high-wire competition look pallid, formulaic, or just plain fake.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-242905-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.
Coulter’s treasured FBI agents take on two cases marked by danger and personal involvement.
Dillon Savitch and his wife, Lacey Sherlock, have special abilities that have served them well in law enforcement (Paradox, 2018, etc.). But that doesn't prevent Sherlock’s car from hitting a running man after having been struck by a speeding SUV that runs a red light. The runner, though clearly injured, continues on his way and disappears. Not so the SUV driver, a security engineer for the Bexholt Group, which has ties to government agencies. Sherlock’s own concussion causes memory loss so severe that she doesn’t recognize Savitch or remember their son, Sean. The whole incident seems more suspicious when a blood test from the splatter of the man Sherlock hit reveals that he’s Justice Cummings, an analyst for the CIA. The agency’s refusal to cooperate makes Savitch certain that Bexholt is involved in a deep-laid plot. Meanwhile, Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith is visiting friends who run a cafe in the touristy Virginia town of Gaffers Ridge. Hammersmith, who has psychic abilities, is taken aback when he hears in his mind a woman’s cry for help. Reporter Carson DeSilva, who came to the area to interview a Nobel Prize winner, also has psychic abilities, and she overhears the thoughts of Rafer Bodine, a young man who has apparently kidnapped and possibly murdered three teenage girls. Unluckily, she blurts out her thoughts, and she’s snatched and tied up in a cellar by Bodine. Bodine may be a killer, but he’s also the nephew of the sheriff and the son of the local bigwig. So the sheriff arrests Hammersmith and refuses to accept his FBI credentials. Bodine's mother has psychic powers strong enough to kill, but she meets her match in Hammersmith, DeSilva, Savitch, and Sherlock.
Greed, love, and extrasensory abilities combine in two middling mysteries.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9365-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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