Fans of Hunter's Swagger family legend will be locked and loaded for more.
Hunter (I, Ripper, 2015, etc.) continues the Swagger family saga, with Bob Lee lured from retirement after a steel box secreted by his grandfather Charles is discovered on the family’s old Arkansas homestead.
In the box are a Colt .45 government-model pistol, an odd machined cylinder, an FBI Special Agent badge, a $1,000 bill, and a map. It will all trace back to 1934 and gangsters Homer Van Meter, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, and John Dillinger, who were robbing every bank in sight. Bob’s enigmatic grandfather Charles, a World War I hero, left his duties as Polk County sheriff to serve the federal Division of Investigation, the FBI’s forerunner, in Chicago, and the book alternates between his adventures in 1934 and his grandson's quest to figure out what happened. The action takes off as Charles, while sending more than one bad guy to the morgue, turns the division’s lawyers and accountants into shoot-to-kill street agents. There are regular shifts to Baby Face with surprising insight into his personality and marriage. While wanting to know why Charles buried that box, Bob Lee also sets out to find out why his grandfather spent only a few months with the division—"Everything about this old bastard was thin"—leading to two startling revelations. Hunter’s handling of a bank-robbery gun battle and later the bloody takedown of Baby Face are you-are-there choreographed. However, it’s Charles’ manipulating the mob, corrupt cops, and publicity hound Melvin Purvis while dodging Tommy guns, .45s, and the deadly Monitor that keeps the pages turning, letting Bob Lee’s pursuit of Charles’ history fade to a sideshow—at least until Bob deciphers the map and is confronted by the hillbilly Mafia.
Fans of Hunter's Swagger family legend will be locked and loaded for more.Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-57460-3
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that...
Wyoming Game and Fish Warden Joe Pickett (Free Fire, 2007, etc.), once again at the governor’s behest, stalks the wraithlike figure who’s targeting elk hunters for death.
Frank Urman was taken down by a single rifle shot, field-dressed, beheaded and hung upside-down to bleed out. (You won’t believe where his head eventually turns up.) The poker chip found near his body confirms that he’s the third victim of the Wolverine, a killer whose animus against hunters is evidently being whipped up by anti-hunting activist Klamath Moore. The potential effects on the state’s hunting revenues are so calamitous that Governor Spencer Rulon pulls out all the stops, and Pickett is forced to work directly with Wyoming Game and Fish Director Randy Pope, the boss who fired him from his regular job in Saddlestring District. Three more victims will die in rapid succession before Joe is given a more congenial colleague: Nate Romanowski, the outlaw falconer who pledged to protect Joe’s family before he was taken into federal custody. As usual in this acclaimed series, the mystery is slight and its solution eminently guessable long before it’s confirmed by testimony from an unlikely source. But the people and scenes and enduring conflicts that lead up to that solution will stick with you for a long time.
More of a western than a mystery, like most of Joe’s adventures, and all the better for the open physical clashes that periodically release the tension between the scheming adversaries.Pub Date: May 20, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-15488-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2008
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.
A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.
Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the too-pat conclusion.
Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-293617-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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