by Sebastian Stuart ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2011
A dead singer/songwriter looking for a comeback is at the center of this second case for a Hudson Valley psychotherapist-turned–antiques dealer and her big, happy, dysfunctional, non-biological family.
Janet Petrocelli (To the Manor Dead, 2010, etc.) is delighted to offer Natasha Wolfson, an “ex-semi-name” singer, $5,000 for the jewelry and junk she’s unloading in connection with kick-starting her life at 29. But her pleasure in the transaction turns sour when Natasha is found dead at the bottom of Platte Cove. Det. Chevrona Williams, of the New York State Police, is satisfied that her death was an accident, or maybe suicide while of hippy-dippy mind, since Natasha seems to have been a keen proponent of better living through chemistry. But Janet, for reasons best known to her, is convinced that Natasha was murdered and that it’s her job to identify the killer. It’s true that Natasha’s parents, pop psychology gurus Howard and Sally Wolfson, her Czech boyfriend Pavel and Pavel’s wealthy landladies, mannish Lavinia Bump and her sister Octavia, to whom Pavel instantly transfers his affections, all seem sufficiently unbalanced to have pushed Natasha off a cliff. But then so do the series regulars, from Janet’s caterer friend Abba Turner to her pal George, a gay nurse who’s always in the throes of an unwise passion, to Josie Alvarez, the teenager who helped out in Janet’s Planet until she was spirited away by a mean-spirited pair of foster parents. The mystery and its solution, sketched out rather than worked out, are mainly a pretext for introducing you to some amiable misfits, some exotic pets and Janet’s supremely gossipy narration.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7387-2317-4
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Midnight Ink/Llewellyn
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
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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
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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
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