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LEAVE NO TRACE

Strictly for dog lovers and action fans. Dogs-in-action junkies will be transported.

A fifth outing pits search-and-rescue officer Meg Jennings and her canine partner against a serial killer whose choice of weapons drives the story.

The shooting of Sgt. Noah Hubbert, of the Georgia State Patrol, would be shocking under any circumstances. What sets it apart is the fact that he’s been shot with an arrow—and that he’s not the first such victim in the area. Tim Reynolds, the chairman of the Fannin County Board of Commissioners, was struck down by an identical arrow two weeks ago. The killer’s modus operandi should make him absurdly easy to track down: How many archers can reliably hit their targets from as far away as this one clearly was? And the most likely motive is pretty clear too: opposition to the Copperhill Dam, which has been planned to manage the water level of the Toccoa River, which separates McCaysville, Georgia, from Copperhill, Tennessee. But that doesn’t deprive Driscoll of the opportunity for several gripping sequences involving the tracking of the suspect by members of the Human Scent Evidence Team and their canine partners. These action sequences, juiced by the heroine’s fear of heights, are terrific, and the interplay between the dogs and their handlers is deeply felt. But neither the plotting nor the characterization measures up to them. Meg’s friend Clay McCord, of the Washington Post, generates a list of award-winning archers, and then Meg and Special Agent Sam Torres, of the Atlanta FBI, go down the list, trying to ignore the mounting body count, till a profiler points them to the only suspect who’s come close to making an impression.

Strictly for dog lovers and action fans. Dogs-in-action junkies will be transported.

Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-4967-2249-2

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Kensington

Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020

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THE BLACK WOLF

Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.

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  • New York Times Bestseller

A sequel to The Grey Wolf (2024) that begins with the earlier novel’s last line: “We have a problem.” And what a problem it is.

Now that Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his allies in and out of the Sûreté du Québec have saved Canada’s water supply from poisoning on a grand scale, you might think they were entitled to some rest and relaxation in Three Pines. No such luck. Don Joseph Moretti, the Sixth Family head who ordered the hit-and-run on biologist Charles Langlois that nearly killed Gamache as well, is plotting still more criminal enterprises, and Gamache can’t be sure that Chief Inspector Evelyn Tardiff, who’s been cozying up to Moretti in order to get the goods on him, hasn’t gone over to the dark side herself. In fact, Gamache’s uncertainty about Evelyn sets the pattern for much of what follows, for another review of one of Langlois’ notebooks reveals a plot so monstrous that it’s impossible to be sure who’s not in on it. Is it really true, as paranoid online rumors have it, that “Canada is about to attack the U.S.”? Or is it really the other way around, as the discovery of War Plan Red would have it? As the threats loom larger and larger, they raise questions as to whether the Black Wolf, the evil power behind them, is Moretti, disgraced former Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, whom Gamache has arranged to have released from prison, or someone even more highly placed. A brief introductory note dating Penny’s delivery of the uncannily prophetic manuscript to September 2024 will do little to assuage the anxieties of concerned readers.

Don’t feel that your current news feed is disturbing enough? Penny has just what you need.

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025

ISBN: 9781250328175

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025

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LOCAL WOMAN MISSING

More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.

What should be a rare horror—a woman gone missing—becomes a pattern in Kubica's latest thriller.

One night, a young mother goes for a run. She never comes home. A few weeks later, the body of Meredith, another missing woman, is found with a self-inflicted knife wound; the only clue about the fate of her still-missing 6-year-old daughter, Delilah, is a note that reads, "You’ll never find her. Don’t even try." Eleven years later, a girl escapes from a basement where she’s been held captive and severely abused; she reports that she is Delilah. Kubica alternates between chapters in the present narrated by Delilah’s younger brother, Leo, now 15 and resentful of the hold Delilah’s disappearance and Meredith’s death have had on his father, and chapters from 11 years earlier, narrated by Meredith and her neighbor Kate. Meredith begins receiving texts that threaten to expose her and tear her life apart; she struggles to keep them, and her anxiety, from her family as she goes through the motions of teaching yoga and working as a doula. One client in particular worries her; Meredith fears her husband might be abusing her, and she's also unhappy with the way the woman’s obstetrician treats her. So this novel is both a mystery about what led to Meredith’s death and Delilah’s imprisonment and the story of what Delilah's return might mean to her family and all their well-meaning neighbors. Someone is not who they seem; someone has been keeping secrets for 11 long years. The chapters complement one another like a patchwork quilt, slowly revealing the rotten heart of a murderer amid a number of misdirections. The main problem: As it becomes clear whodunit, there’s no true groundwork laid for us to believe that this person would behave at all the way they do.

More like a con than a truly satisfying psychological mystery.

Pub Date: May 18, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-778-38944-6

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Park Row Books

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021

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