by Sabrina Flynn ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2014
An action-packed mystery with enough surprising twists to keep readers engaged.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
In this mystery, a jaded private detective investigates a kidnapping in turn-of-the-20th-century San Francisco.
Haunted by his partner’s violent death, PI Atticus James Riot vows to retire. But his old mentor, Tim, persuades him to take on one last case: kidnappers have taken Isobel Kingston, the daughter of one of San Francisco’s wealthier families, and issued two ransom demands. Riot immediately notices something strange: one note was delivered to Isobel’s father (who’s not as well-to-do as her husband), which demanded that the police not be notified, while the second was sent to three local newspapers, ensuring the cops’ involvement. As Riot interviews those close to Isobel and explores the piers, brothels, and dance halls of the vice-ridden Barbary Coast, he begins to piece together a more complicated tale. Isobel, spirited and impetuous, had brought scandal on her family more than once, and her marriage to Alex Kingston was unexpected. Her brother Curtis tells Riot that she’d suspected Alex of plotting to destroy her father’s business—and just a few months later, the two announced their engagement. Interlaced with Riot’s investigation are chapters that follow Isobel a week earlier, as she steals away from her home and ends up bound and gagged in a ship’s hold. Soon, Riot grapples with the death of another victim. Flynn (Record of Blood, 2017, etc.) manages to weave in an impressive amount of detail regarding the story’s time and place, bringing history to life without ever letting it get in the way of the gunfight-filled drama. The author’s prose is generally lean, but her metaphors can get a tad elaborate at times; for example, on Riot’s return to San Francisco, she writes: “California’s silver mistress greeted him with a lush, sensuous embrace. She was a late riser who generally left at noon, returning in the evening like a slow crashing wave rolling relentlessly towards the port.” Isobel, a forthright, tough woman, is easily the story’s standout character.
An action-packed mystery with enough surprising twists to keep readers engaged.Pub Date: May 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4996-6131-6
Page Count: 268
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Kathy Reichs
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs
BOOK REVIEW
by Kathy Reichs
by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
BOOK REVIEW
by C.J. Box
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.