The Akashic noir steamroller, now 56 titles strong, pulls up to Kansas City.
What about Kansas City says noir? Half of these 14 new stories leave this question a mystery because they reveal so little about the city. Oddly, it’s the shorter stories that are more steeped in local atmosphere. Linda Rodriguez’s retired hero crosses a line to protect his South Troost neighborhood from gangs and lives to regret it. Nancy Pickard shows traumatic childhood memories of the Paseo casting a long shadow over a woman in faraway Detroit. Mitch Brian provides a slight but evocative account of the last night before a movie theater goes dark. Daniel Woodrell traces the murderous arc of a female who tears up the city and feasts on the resulting headlines. Phong Nguyen imagines an episode built around a real-life 19th-century political fixer, and Andrés Rodríguez devises a more mysterious end for the famous owner of Milton’s Tap Room. In the most routine of the stories, Nadia Pflaum explains why you can’t get good Kansas City barbecue anymore. The other entries aren’t any less successful, just more indeterminate in their time and place. Matthew Eck’s hero and heroine, children of serial killers, meet at a convention in a town that just happens to be Kansas City. John Lutz spins a tart variation on Thelma and Louise that could have followed any mean streets. Same thing with Kevin Prufer’s tale of a sick cop on the trail of an even sicker killer, or Catherine Browder’s cop accidentally shot during a quarrel with her lesbian live-in. Hard-used heroes and heroines seem to live a lifetime in the stories of J. Malcolm Garcia, Grace Suh and Philip Stephens. What these tales lack in geographic specificity they make up in lived experience; each one seems almost novelistic in scope. Half novels-in-waiting, half journalistic anecdotes that are equally likely to appeal to Kansas City boosters and strangers.
Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61775-128-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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