Defense attorney Paul Madriani (Compelling Evidence, 1992) signs on for a brief stint in the Davenport, California, prosecutor's office—then finds himself condemned to try a high-profile serial killing. Three couples have been murdered by somebody whose MO is distinctively grisly—they're staked to the ground with tent pegs, another peg driven through their hearts—but the third incident is different in enough ways (much older couple, different kind of rope, tent pegs not sharpened to a point) to suggest a copycat killer. Still, after Paul and his investigators turn up Andre Iganovich, a suspect for the first two pairs of murders, everybody—from Paul's impatient wife Nikki to the judges to the Davenport powers that be, even to Adrian Chambers, the venal defense attorney representing Iganovich, and certainly including the anonymous caller threatening Paul's family if he doesn't include the last two murders in the indictment—wants Paul to close the case by pinning all six crimes on Iganovich instead of continuing to search for the copycat. But Paul's determined to track down the missing witness to the last two murders, a man who has his own reasons for keeping quiet about why he was perched in a tree high above the fatal scene. The obligatory impossible obstacles—constant pressure from Paul's old nemesis Judge Armando Acosta; the incompetence and possible treachery of graying junior prosecutor Roland Overroy; an extradition mess when Iganovich flees the country; and the unprincipled enmity of Chambers, on the rebound from a disbarment arranged partly by Paul—come at Paul helter-skelter, without much rhyme or reason, until midway through the book, when the trial begins and Martini rolls up his sleeves to do what he does best. Not as twisty or deeply felt as Compelling Evidence, but not as overwrought either—and the unbelievable ending packs a satisfying punch. Good medium-grade beach fare.
Pub Date: July 14, 1993
ISBN: 0-399-13802-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
Categories: GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE
Did you like this book?
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. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Did you like this book?
The daughter of a grifter plans to fund her mother’s cancer treatment with a revenge con.
Rich people suck, don’t they? Nina Ross found this out in her adolescence, when her romance with Benny Liebling was broken up by his status-obsessed, old-money father, who found them screwing in the guest cottage of the family’s Lake Tahoe estate. Back then, Nina had a future—but she’s since followed her con-artist mother into the family business with the help of a handsome blue-eyed Irish confederate named Lachlan. “Here’s my rule,” Nina tells him. “Only people who have too much, and only people who deserve it.” Of course, he agrees. “We take only what we need.” With her art history background, Nina is usually able to target a few expensive antiques they can lift without the rich dopes even noticing they’re gone. But now that Nina's mother is hovering at death’s door without health insurance, she’s going after the $1 million in cash Benny mentioned was in his father’s safe all those years ago. So back to Lake Tahoe it is. The older Lieblings are dead, and Benny’s in the bin, so it’s his sister Vanessa Liebling who is the target of the complicated caper. Vanessa is a terribly annoying character—“I couldn’t tell you how I went from a few dozen Instagram followers to a half-million. One day, you’re uploading photos of your dog wearing sunglasses; and the next you’re begin flown to Coachella on a private jet with four other social media It Girls…”—but, in fact, you’ll hate everyone in this book. That is surely Brown’s (Watch Me Disappear, 2017, etc.) intention as she’s the one making them natter on this way. She also makes them vomit much more than is normal, whether it’s because they’re poisoning each other or because they’re just so horrified by each other’s behavior. Definitely stay to see how it all turns out.
Why you double-crossing little double crossers! Fiendishly clever.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-47912-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Did you like this book?
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
