A treat for fans of opera, English country houses, and women of a certain age with the knack for rebounding. If not quite...
Normally the Yorkshire villagers would shun the likes of former actress Caroline Fawley, but the lover who’s set her up in Alderley, a charming stately home, and visited her on weekends is super-rich supermarket tycoon Marius Fleetwood. So she’s even asked to host the annual fête. At her mantrap daughter Olivia’s Leeds operatic debut in La Forza del Destino, Caroline awaits in vain for Marius to join her for the curtain call. All too soon, the coppers discover his body between the theater and the tawdry Crescent Hotel. Caroline, who believed Marius to be devoted to her despite his many previous mistresses and his live-in accommodation with his wife, is devastated to learn that he might have been unfaithful and, even worse, that he’d paid for only two more months rent on Alderley. Investigating DS Charlie Peace (The Bones in the Attic, 2002, etc.) finds no lack of suspects, including one of Caroline’s former husbands, impoverished musicale singer Rick Radshaw; Caroline’s youngsters Stella and Alexander, and Marius’s son Guy, all lukewarm about Dad’s relationship, all gadding about Leeds that night; the ubiquitous Pete Bagshaw, one of Marius’s unacknowledged by-blows; and assorted business rivals, village moralists, and even Marius’s wife, now pregnant, so he’d claimed, with another man’s child. But it’s not until Peace breaks down La Forza scene by scene and prop by prop that the real murderer, motive, and method are revealed.
A treat for fans of opera, English country houses, and women of a certain age with the knack for rebounding. If not quite Barnard at his best, close enough.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7432-3688-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.
Sparks fly as a woman with extraordinary abilities fights her attraction to a dangerous freelance consultant.
Dr. Kendra Michaels has worked with former FBI Agent Adam Lynch before (Double Blind, 2018), but she’s furious with him for getting her tossed out of Afghanistan after she sustained a minor wound while trying to root out corruption. Kendra, who was blind until an experimental operation restored her sight at 20, has highly developed senses of smell, hearing, and spatial awareness that she’s used to help the FBI and CIA in many difficult cases. Now, as she returns to the U.S., they have another one she can’t resist investigating. Elaine Wessler and Ronald Kim, both staff members at her old school, the Woodward Academy for the Physically Disabled in Oceanside, California, have been found murdered for no apparent reason, and FBI Special Agent Michael Griffin is anxious to use her skills and inside knowledge. Elaine had been fostering an unusual guide dog, Harley, who's had problems adjusting since the child he was working with was killed in a gas-main explosion. Now that Elaine is gone, his unearthly howls are upsetting the students. Kendra talks her best friend, Olivia, who’s blind, into sharing custody of Harley until they can find him the right home. Meanwhile, she turns up clues the FBI team missed and is rewarded for her efforts with a bomb planted in her car. It turns out to be fake, but it’s still a potent warning to walk away. Returning from Afghanistan to help Kendra, Lynch finds her still angry with him and intent on resisting his charms. Her friend Jessie Mercado, a private eye, turns up to help extricate her from a dangerous situation and sticks around to join the hunt for the killers. It will take all of them, including Harley, to solve the violent, complex case and get the school Kendra loves back on track.
Mystery, danger, and sexual tension abound in an action-packed thriller that breaks plenty of heads but no new ground.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5387-6292-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
As usual, Coben piles on the plot twists, false leads, violent set pieces and climactic surprises with the unfocused...
After six years of spinning jaw-dropping stand-alone thrillers, Coben brings back his sports agent—make that everything agent—Myron Bolitar (Darkest Fear, 2000, etc.) for an encore.
Overhearing high-school senior Erin Wilder, his current ladylove’s daughter, sharing confidences with her friend Aimee Biel about getting driven by wasted friends, Myron Bolitar promises both girls that if they ever need a ride, they can call him and he’ll pick them up, no questions asked. All too soon he gets a chance to deliver. Aimee phones him from midtown Manhattan, where he just happens to be staying, and asks him to drive her to suburban New Jersey. Myron obliges but pushes a bit too hard with the questions, and Aimee vanishes into a strange house. The next day she’s still missing, and in jig time the police, armed with Myron’s credit-card slips and EZ-Pass records, come calling. It turns out that Myron’s not a credible suspect. But because everybody connects Aimee’s disappearance to that of fellow student Katie Rochester three months ago, Myron’s on the hook with some serious people, from Aimee’s parents, who beg him to bring her home, to Katie’s mobbed-up dad, who’s too proud to beg but has other ways of getting him to cooperate.
As usual, Coben piles on the plot twists, false leads, violent set pieces and climactic surprises with the unfocused intensity that have made his thrillers (The Innocent, 2005, etc.) such a hot ticket.Pub Date: April 25, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-94949-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
BOOK TO SCREEN
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