An engaging and loving look at small-town Southern life with an appealing sleuth.
A “star reporter”—on the scene when a crashed Cessna explodes—sees a man run from the disaster and is determined to discover his identity and what caused the plane to blow up.
In McCoy’s debut mystery, journalist Daisy McLaren and photographer/videographer Jake Smith report on a plane crash on a remote mountain near the town of Franklin, North Carolina. Daisy sees a man race from the plane just as it explodes unexpectedly. She watches as he heads toward the Walker family’s farm. Daisy went to school with Caleb Walker “until tenth grade, when he just quit coming.” She always found the Walkers “strange, and now she wondered whether they might have something to do with the plane crash.” When she ignores Jake’s warning not to visit the family by herself, she’s met with a pack of dogs and the gun-toting patriarch demanding she get off his land. Daisy’s mother died a few years earlier in a car accident near the mountain where the plane crashed. The reporter still tries to unravel details of the accident along with the mystery of the exploding plane. When she learns about an influx of heroin in town, Daisy suspects a connection to the plane. While gun shy about relationships with men, she does open her heart to a stray cat she names Rescue. In this series opener, the hero is heavily reminiscent of Nancy Drew; both have attorney fathers and dead mothers; both enjoy tooling around town, Daisy in a Jeep, Nancy in a roadster. Both have chaste relationships with their men—Daisy with Jake, Nancy with Ned Nickerson. But while Nancy is a New Englander, Daisy is a Southerner, like the author, and images of North Carolina’s forests, mountains, and small shops are inviting. Sections on Native American legends and lore add to the story, which takes place largely in Franklin, once home to the Cherokee Nation and other tribes. The mystery itself fails to be heart-pounding, but there is much sweetness in Daisy’s relationships with others and with Rescue, who curls “like a croissant” on the couch or “wreaths” herself on a bed pillow.
An engaging and loving look at small-town Southern life with an appealing sleuth.Pub Date: July 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-578-93085-5
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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