This well-executed sequel with a striking detective demands a third installment.
In this novel, a “mundane” hit-and-run case has mess written all over it for a down-but-not-out private investigator.
Sidney Reed was once considered Alaska’s best private detective. But after life dealt him “a shitty hand,” he finds himself living in a dingy apartment above a downtown Anchorage coffee shop and is no longer on noted criminal defense attorney Eddie Baker’s “A” list of investigators. But Eddie’s in a bind and needs Sidney to help him with the politically sensitive hit-and-run that claimed the life of the son of a prominent Native leader. Eddie’s client, Rudy Skinner, was in prison for another offense and was ratted out by his cellmate, who claimed Rudy confessed the crime to him. But Eddie promises the case will be “nothing too intense.” Sidney is reluctant to take the assignment: He is still haunted by the death of his beloved wife, Molly, who by all official accounts chose suicide. Sidney needs answers. “She’s not coming back,” says his psychiatrist. “The sooner you come to grips with that, the sooner you can get on with your life.” His life could end sooner than expected, as his investigation leads him to the Cooley family, which is well known to anyone who works in the Alaska legal system. Let’s just say that things start breaking bad for Sidney. Norgard’s second Sidney Read novel achieves what a good sequel should. It gives the protagonist a case that will further test his acumen while moving his personal story forward—with a budding relationship with reporter Maria Maldonado—and setting up a possible full reckoning with Molly’s death. The author makes effective use of the Anchorage setting; suffice to say, Sam Spade never had his car totaled by an errant moose. Norgard avoids some clichés of PI fiction, such as the obligatory hostility from the local police, but indulges in others, like the overly talkative (albeit, surprisingly soulful) villain in the otherwise tautly wrought climax.
This well-executed sequel with a striking detective demands a third installment.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-947504-30-1
Page Count: 346
Publisher: Bird Dog Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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