A fast-paced, twisted mystery with a thoroughly enjoyable solution.
In this installment of Lund’s Lake Superior Mystery series, a detective’s investigation uncovers a complex tapestry of secrets and lies.
Det. Lincoln Barnes has moved to Lake County after leaving the Minneapolis Police Department following a murder investigation that irrevocably changed her life. She’s now been assigned to find the murderer of Oscar Fawcett, who was run off the road in a collision that resulted in his decapitation. Oscar had previously donated a kidney to his mother Rebecca’s then-fiance, Paul Barton. Following the operation, Paul ended the engagement with Rebecca and married his mistress, which had clearly been his plan all along. Oscar and Rebecca sued Paul, who settled but was greatly angered by them taking legal action against him. In what initially appears to be an unrelated incident, Larry Osgood, the CEO of a mining company, is kidnapped and later found murdered in a remote cabin. Matters are further complicated when Paul Barton and his wife are poisoned. Meanwhile, Paul’s friend Jack Whitman grows close to his paralegal and begins an affair with her, but she may not be who she seems. If all that wasn’t enough, Lincoln can’t let go of her memories of Judge Robin Gildemeister as she questions whether he was the monster his journal made him out to be (“The contents of the diary were proof that the former judge had murdered the president of the Minneapolis City Council or proof that he was deeply disturbed, or maybe both”). Lund returns to his Lake Superior Mystery series with a stunning sequel that raises the bar already set high by the first installment, Who Are You? (2022).Lincoln continues to tackle cases with her grounded approach and admirable personality, bringing a human element to the overall analytical tone. Including chapters from Whitman’s point of view adds an intriguing element to the story, allowing the reader to see clues Lincoln is not aware of and illustrating the complexity of characters whose actions are less favorable than the honorable detective’s.
A fast-paced, twisted mystery with a thoroughly enjoyable solution.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781955656870
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Little Creek Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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