Well-constructed and deftly character-driven, with a nice little love story for leavening.
Herman Jackson, bail bondsman with a heart of mush (Fiddle Game, 2008), goes the extra mile for an ill-used Vietnam vet.
One look at Charlie Victor, and most people think of hard luck personified: “Yesterday, elsewhere, and too bad.” Consider his war, for instance. Vietnam, no picnic for anyone, was through no fault of Charlie’s an extended nightmare from which he never came close to awaking. So when Herman, the doyen of St. Paul bail bondsmen, learns that Charlie’s end has been both sudden and remarkably brutal, he’s not surprised. But not detached either. After all, Charlie, for whom brushes with ill-disposed cops have long been routine, has been a bread-and-butter client and something more; Herman was drawn to the vet, or at least to the man he sensed had once been. As he launches his investigation into that earlier incarnation, Herman discovers it was far more complicated than he ever imagined. To begin with, Charlie’s murder is not the mindless act of violence described by the police. It’s been carefully calculated, and its roots go astonishingly deep. The fact is that Charlie mattered enough for powerful people to hate him bitterly.
Well-constructed and deftly character-driven, with a nice little love story for leavening.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59058-678-5
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances,...
An anonymous letter brings DCI Harry Nelson memories of past sorrows and present dangers.
The letter mentions a stone circle that harks back to the 20-year-old case of a missing child. Ten years later, another missing child introduced Harry to archaeologist Ruth Galloway when he asked her to examine some bones. That case began a working relationship that turned out to be equally productive in personal terms: A short-lived affair between the two produced a child, Kate, though Harry is married and has two grown daughters. His wife, Michelle, who accepts Kate in their lives, is about to give birth to a baby who may or may not be Harry’s. A new archaeological team working near the site of the original henge finds a stone coffin containing bones. The head of the dig is Leif Anderssen, whose father, Erik, was Ruth’s mentor all those years ago. As Harry continues to receive cryptic messages, the bones of what Ruth thinks is a young girl are found near the new dig, opening up yet another old case. The police think the body is that of Margaret Lacey, who vanished from a street party in 1981. The focus at the time was on her parents; her older siblings, Annie and Luke; and John Mostyn, a neighbor and odd duck who collected stones. But nothing was ever proven, and Margaret’s body was never found. The birth of George, Michelle’s son, puts more pressure on Harry, who loves his wife and Ruth in different ways, to stay in his marriage. Nelson’s team and some friends of Ruth’s use their own areas of expertise to search for clues from the past, but when the child of Annie’s daughter, Star, is kidnapped, the present-day crisis takes center stage.
This superb series (The Dark Angel, 2018, etc.) never disappoints. Its patented combination of mysterious circumstances, police procedure, and agonizing relationship problems will keep you reading, and feeling, all night.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-97464-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.
Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).
After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.
A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-1134-2
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
