Spirited, interwoven characters enrich this sharply written mystery.
In this desert thriller, an Arizona police detective questioning his courage investigates a relative’s death.
Some consider Frank Gaines a hero for his bravery in a hostage situation. But it’s all a front; he feels “afraid half the time” and has been seeing Apache psychotherapist Sunny Kacheenay for a year and a half. He talks in sessions about old and ongoing police cases and dreams as well as about the phone call from the widow of his great-uncle, who’s dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. Sunny deciphers his great-aunt’s essential message—it’s Gaines’ “sacred duty,” as part Apache, to torture and kill whoever is responsible for the suicide. The detective quickly eyes Jason Flint, Sunny’s landlord, who, for some reason, unnerves Gaines. But as he’s still a cop, Gaines struggles with his choices. Meanwhile, Flint’s malice seems to permeate everyone’s lives and minds, and other locals, from a woman who’s already done a stint for manslaughter to one of Sunny’s patients, soon enter the fray. Lenz aptly fuses a procedural with dreamlike sequences filled with meaning, such as Gaines’ seeing Sunny’s 6-year-old son, who died in a car accident. The many characters involved intersect in intriguing ways, sometimes literally passing one another at Sunny’s office. But what really grounds the story are the players’ intricate roots. Gaines, for example, as half Native American and half White, feels like something of an outcast, and even his dog, a rescue, is a rare (and illegal) coydog. The author offers evocative details about the arid but beautiful desert landscape, which features a “scarred tract of rocks and sagebrush, beyond an immense field of cactus, maturing lavishly in the remains of a many-years-ago flash flood, and stretching for miles all the way to the cliffs.” The final act accelerates in intensity, though Lenz tempers much of the violence throughout.
Spirited, interwoven characters enrich this sharply written mystery.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780999695333
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Chromodroid Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.
Someone is stalking the streets of Lt. Eve Dallas’s New York, intent on bringing new life to sex workers by snuffing out their old ones.
In 2061, prostitutes are called licensed companions, and that’s Leesa Culver’s job description when she’s accosted by a plausible-looking artist who wants to hire her as a model for the night. Before the night is over, she’s been drugged, strangled, costumed, and posed as an uncanny replica of Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring. The shock of the crime is deepened by the murder the following night of licensed companion Bobby Ren, whose body is discovered at an art gallery entrance costumed and posed as Gainsborough’s Blue Boy. The killer clearly has an obsessive agenda, a rapid-fire timetable, and access to unlimited financial resources that have allowed him to commission expensive custom-made outfits for the victims. This last detail both marks his power and points to the way Dallas, her gazillionaire husband, Roarke, and her sidekick, Det. Delia Peabody, will track him down by methodically narrowing the field of consumers who’ve purchased the costly costumes. After identifying the guilty party two-thirds of the way through the story, they’ll still face an uphill battle convicting a killer with no conscience, no respect for the law, and a budget that would easily cover the means to jump bail, remove his ankle tracker, and hire a private jet to escape to a foreign land with no extradition treaty. Robb keeps it all consistently absorbing by sweating every procedural detail along with her heroine. Only Dallas’ climactic interrogation of her prisoner is a letdown, because it’s perfectly obvious how she’s going to wangle a confession out of him.
High art meets low life in a tale a lot more sympathetic to the latter.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781250370822
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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