A sharp-witted detective hunts a psychopath schooled in murder; highly recommended.
A series of brutal murders in Boston tests the police and terrifies a book club.
As Bruneau’s debut mystery begins, Augusta “Gussie” Watkins races to her fifth-floor Cambridge apartment after work because she will host book club that night. Reaching her building, she takes the elevator, which suddenly stops between floors. A hatch atop the lift opens, and a hand emerges. That night, police find Gussie’s body with her eyes cut out. Near the body is scrawled the message, “Justice is blind.” Two days later, an elite runner is discovered dead in Boston Common with a knife in her back. A note nearby reads, “Justice is swift.” Chief Homicide Investigator Dimase Augustin realizes he’s hunting a serial killer, and he soon discovers both murdered women were in the same book club—a club that has more members, and they all are in danger. The killer, revealed early on, dishes out payback for an injustice he felt was dealt to him years ago when he was a university biology professor at MIT. Financed by “angel investors” in his work on a cure for Alzheimer’s, much of his research involved mice dissection. Did mutilating Gussie bother him? No, he “just thought of her as a big mouse.” For years he planned the murder while he played the long game in terms of going off the grid. Now, when Augustin suspects the former prof, he’s gone without a trace. Bruneau doesn’t rush the book club members’ backstories, likes, and routines. The reader feels they know these women, which raises the stakes. A believable time frame, intelligent dialogue, an abundance of twists, and escalation in the psychopath’s violence lead to quick page turns. Characters are intelligent, and a mix of races is represented. Augustin, a smart, albeit chain-smoking, middle-aged African American chief cop, deserves prominence in a sequel.
A sharp-witted detective hunts a psychopath schooled in murder; highly recommended.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-8738-7
Page Count: 334
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
A powerful case for the proposition that “college football wasn’t a game at all; it was a business.”
Now that college athletes are finally getting paid, Cranor takes a deep dive into the days when they weren’t.
The University of Central Mississippi Chiefs quarterback Moses McCloud is a Black freshman who’s backing up Matt Talley, a white star thrust to nationwide prominence by his success last season. So it’s not very likely that Moses will see much playing time—at least until Matt, fresh from his team’s latest victory, takes a header from a rooftop that ends his career, his life, and, thanks to the bag of money scattered around him, maybe his reputation. Mississippi state congressman Harry Christmas, whose years-long scheme to revitalize the region and incidentally enrich himself by paying to recruit and control top talent on the field, is furious that a distracted Matt didn’t throw the game, as Harry’s bagman, Eddie Pride Junior, had ordered him. But not so furious that he can’t turn on a dime and tender a similar deal to Moses. When the kid turns down the money, Harry threatens to call in Eddie’s crippling debts unless he persuades his daughter Ella May, who was with Matt on that roof moments before his hard landing, to offer herself to Moses, who’d resigned himself to losing that competition to Matt, too. Meanwhile, computer expert Rae Johnson, a rookie FBI agent whose father was a legendary football coach, is determined to look more closely into the star quarterback’s death, even though her much older partner, Frank Ranchino, keeps reminding her that their job description includes financial crimes, not murder. Cranor expertly keeps the pot simmering until a pervasive stench settles over virtually all parties.
A powerful case for the proposition that “college football wasn’t a game at all; it was a business.”Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9781641296977
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
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