An intricate and often intriguing exploration of tensions and secrets in a small town.
In Prill’s mystery novel, an Iowa-based detective, assigned to investigate a former soldier’s death in a nearby rural community, uncovers killings stretching back to the 1940s.
In a time-jumping opener, businessman Richard Frost leaves his home in Brinson, Iowa, on November 7, 1940, never to be seen again, and an unnamed man in his mid-60s in 2020 receives a manuscript that claim to reveal the “truth”: “Everything in this book is true. It’s not historical fiction. It’s not based on enhanced memories—it is the truth.” The novel then delves into the life-changing 1970 experiences of Brent Frost, a high school freshman in Brinson, and 41-year-old Fred Barnes, an Iowa Crimes Commission detective from Des Moines, who comes to the rural town to address a request to investigate the suspicious suicide of a Vietnam veteran. Barnes, who’s recently widowed, soon becomes romantically involved with the requestor, Janice Hinton. Brent, meanwhile, attracts the interest of a local girl after he takes a dare to find out what’s hidden in an area barn. The son of the missing businessman also returns to town, looking for closure. Investigations escalate when telltale evidence turns up in a local well, a fisherman reports that something is stuck in the nearby lake, and Barnes discovers a strange pattern of deaths; later, there’s a tense showdown. In this book, Prill effectively pivots from his previous historical novels set in ancient Rome, including From the Realm of Time (2020), to craft an enjoyable heartland mystery that offers a diverse range of characters—including several surprise criminals and victims. Given the complexity of the world that the author sets in motion, some readers may feel that the dense narrative is challenging to follow at times. Thankfully, Prill also provides a character list upfront for easy reference, as well as an extended epilogue that entertainingly wraps up the fates of this story’s many colorful players.
An intricate and often intriguing exploration of tensions and secrets in a small town.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9780990860440
Page Count: 358
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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