Perceptive storytelling energized by an admirable protagonist and refined prose.
In the first of the Manny Rivera Mystery series, a collection of rare, valuable Native American pottery leads to deceit and murder.
Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera is assigned to the case of a ranch hand found with a bullet hole in his head. The deputy, desperate to make up for a previously botched stakeout gig, tracks clues and hopes to solve the murder before the profitable tourist season in Moab, Utah, takes a hit. The killer, meanwhile, is trying to sell Native American artifacts that are apparently worth shooting someone for. He obtained the pottery illegally, on a ranch run by a man who, unbeknownst to Manny, found the body first and moved it to protect a secret. Curtin’s debut novel is easily labeled a murder mystery, but it’s more about the investigation than the whodunit, especially since the killer’s identity and motive are never a mystery. The real question is why Paul, the ranch foreman, drove the body far away from the ranch, a mystery that the author smartly keeps concealed until the end. Manny’s investigation consists mostly of interviews, but following along with the deputy is utterly absorbing and gratifying since he’s essentially the underdog; his intentions are to make amends for his last case and make an impression on the sheriff. Such drive makes Manny refreshingly modest; he’s more critical of his mistakes than anyone else. The same likable qualities are, surprisingly, also shown in Frank, the man who kills the ranch hand. His discharge from the Army is followed by a succession of tedious jobs, and he’s treated poorly by his current employer. A sympathetic person, he’s a man whose greed is a character flaw, not a defining trait, and he clearly feels regret over the murder. Curtin’s descriptions of arid Moab are poetic: a mesa “sliced by a labyrinth of rugged canyons,” the “exquisite silence” of the high desert country and the “plumes of dust” Frank sees as he spots his buyer from afar. Unfortunately, one mystery—the genuine identity of the murdered man—isn’t answered, although perhaps that’s for another Manny Rivera tale.
Perceptive storytelling energized by an admirable protagonist and refined prose.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1453890851
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.
A bear is hunting prey in Wyoming’s Bighorns. And not just any bear.
It’s bad enough that Clay Hutmacher, who manages the Double Diamond Ranch, has lost his son, Clay Jr., to a vicious attack by a grizzly bear. What’s much worse is that Clay Jr.—who’d been about to pop the question to game warden Joe Pickett’s daughter, Sheridan—is only the first of the victims over an exceptionally broad geographical area. Marshal Marvin Bertignolli is clawed and bitten to death over in Hanna. Sgt. Ryan Winner is found bleeding out north of Rawlins. Former Twelve Sleep County prosecutor Dulcie Schalk, one of two survivors of an ambush, doesn’t survive her final encounter. The four experts chosen to kill the grizzly rope Joe into their expedition, but since their quarry keeps turning up far from the last sighting, the most meaningful confrontation the Predator Attack Team has is with a pair of Mama Bears, animal rights activists who demand due process for Tisiphone, as they’ve dubbed the presumed killer. Box, who’s far too canny to leave Tisiphone alone on center stage, follows Joe’s old antagonist Dallas Cates as the ex–rodeo star is released from prison and embarks on his revenge tour, which takes him to Lee Ogburn-Russell, an inventor whose life Dallas saved, and Axel Soledad, a correspondent who shares so many enemies with Dallas that he suggests they go after them together. Franchise fans will appreciate new details about Joe’s complicated family, the obligatory high-country landscapes, and yet another corrupt law enforcer.
A tale that’s hard to believe but easy to swallow in a single gulp.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9780593331347
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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