Whatever pleasures readers find in this cluttered, long-winded, generally unsurprising tale, they’re remote from those...
While everyone else in Paradise, Massachusetts, is hibernating for the winter, Police Chief Jesse Stone returns to solve murders ancient and modern in his adopted town.
Even though the Paradise Police Department is effectively two officers short, the discovery of a John Doe in an abandoned factory in Trench Alley shortly after it collapses would hardly strain its resources if it weren’t for another discovery nearby: a pair of skeletons in a hole a few feet away. Officer Molly Crane, moved from desk duty to the patrol rotation to replace Luther “Suitcase” Simpson, who’s slowly recovering from getting gut-shot (Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot, 2014), instantly identifies the remains as those of Mary Kate O’Hara and Virginia Connolly, two of her old classmates from Sacred Heart High, who went missing on the Fourth of July 25 years ago. The gunshot wounds the more recent victim took to the head make it a lot less likely that he’ll be identified soon. Jesse dutifully contacts the girls’ parents, but the closest he gets to a lead comes when flamboyant divorcée Maxie Connolly, who blows into town with all the elemental force of a twister, apparently jumps off a cliff soon after. Jesse, who’s not entirely convinced that the death of the tale’s most appealing character was suicide, divines that someone’s trying to cover something up. But surrounded as usual by unsupportive townsfolk as closemouthed as they are closed-minded, he can only wait for the bad guys to make a mistake—unless Cpl. Drew Allen Jameson, who thinks he recognizes a distinctive tattoo on the John Doe that’s been broadcast around the country, can clear things up when he arrives.
Whatever pleasures readers find in this cluttered, long-winded, generally unsurprising tale, they’re remote from those formerly provided by the late Robert B. Parker and his laconic hero.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-399-16946-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Chilling.
A glaciologist seeks refuge in Antarctica.
A nearly two-year stint at the British Antarctic Survey’s base on South Georgia Island, halfway between the Antarctic mainland and the Falklands, seems like the perfect job for Cambridge graduate Felicity Lloyd. The landscape is breathtaking, the wildlife like no other in the world, and ever changing glaciers provide vital opportunities to investigate the effects of climate change on humankind’s future. But Felicity has another secret reason for choosing to pursue her professional passion in what may be the most remote place on Earth. She hopes that Freddie, who’s stalked her nearly her whole adult life, will never find her there. The trouble is, she can’t remember much about Freddie or the reason for his obsession with her; her memories are jumbled and distorted, with chunks of time missing from her consciousness the size of the icebergs she studies. Dr. Joe Grant, the psychologist she sees in Cambridge, tries to help her recover her lost moments, but just when he seems to be getting close, Felicity shuts him down, preferring to work out her problems alone in the frigid south. Leaving Felicity to handle her issues on her own, however, may no longer be an option for Joe once his mother, DI Delilah Jones, begins to connect the deaths of some of Cambridge’s homeless to Felicity’s blackouts. Bolton (The Craftsman, 2018, etc.) provides her readers with shivers worthy of her setting, although true aficionados of the psychological thriller may find the secret of Felicity’s illness a bit too easy to recognize.
Chilling.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30005-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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