by Sheldon Siegel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 2004
Siegel’s dialogue crackles with pace and authenticity. His brisk narrative offers a nonstop barrage of cynical asides to the...
Sardonic Frisco attorney Michael Daley defends a popular priest against a murder charge.
Mike Daley (Final Verdict, 2003, etc.), back for a fifth outing, takes his monthly confession and follow-up lunch with old friend and one-time fellow seminarian Ramon Aguirre; Mike spent a short time in the priesthood before settling into a legal career, while Father Ramon has become a benevolent fixture in the Mission District. Mike shares news of significant other (and law partner and ex-wife) Rosie in her recovery from breast cancer; Ramon shares his sadness over the apparent suicide of parishioner Maria Conception, a workaholic lawyer and recent divorcée who, at the time of her death, was prosecuting the local archdiocese in a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit. The evening after lunch together, Mike is stunned when Ramon calls and asks for help: he’s been arrested for Maria’s murder. Problems pile up even before they get to trial. Ramon is full of secrets about his relationship with Maria, and Mike learns them one uncomfortable piece at a time: Ramon and Maria were once lovers, Maria was pregnant when she died, and Ramon may have been the father (albeit via artificial insemination). The archdiocese has its own attorneys, the very corporate Quinn and Shanahan, who want the maverick Mike off the case. Chances of them putting Ramon’s interests ahead of the Church’s are slim, and they remain in a constant tug-of-war with Mike. Circumstantial evidence looks bad for Ramon, but Mike finds a handful of suspects with motive at local restaurant Eduardo’s Latin Palace. Maria was having an affair with owner Eduardo Lopez, who was also stepping out with hostess Mercedes Trujillo. Learning of his dalliances, Eduardo’s wife Vicki swore revenge. Maria’s client in the suit against the diocese comes forward with vital evidence—and is suspiciously killed before she can testify.
Siegel’s dialogue crackles with pace and authenticity. His brisk narrative offers a nonstop barrage of cynical asides to the reader—not to every taste.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2004
ISBN: 0-399-15212-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2004
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by J.A. Jance ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
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A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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by Lorna Barrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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