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
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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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