Competent, routine work less notable for suspense or sleuthing chops than for what goes on, early, often and satisfyingly,...
Manhattan attorney Stone Barrington (Loitering with Intent, 2009, etc.) gets dragged back onto the police force to close the books on his 17th case.
Stone prides his ability to turn on a dime. When Georgia peach Carrie Cox walks into Elaine’s, he wastes not a moment in introducing himself and inviting her to the table he shares with former NYPD partner Dino Bacchetti. Learning that she’s an actress turned lip model who’s just fended off a seriously crude casting-couch come-on, he offers his professional services, and in a flash Carrie has followed Stone home, made peace with the offender and been cast in the starring role. She’s apparently headed for happily-ever-after until ex-husband Max Long attacks her. Stone quickly gets an injunction against Max and provides bodyguards to keep him at arm’s length. That plotline peters out, replaced by the far more prosaic dilemma of gallery owner Philip Parsons, who’s worried about his wild child. Hildy, 24, is involved with Derek Sharpe, a sleazy, talentless painter who may also be dealing drugs. Indeed, Stone learns from his erstwhile father-in-law, mob boss Eduardo Bianci, that Sharpe is moving such large quantities of dope that his life is in considerable danger. Further danger to Hildy is posed by Sharpe’s financial advisor, Sig Larsen, poised to snare her in a Ponzi scheme. Once Stone has been drafted into the force by eager-beaver Lt. Brian Doyle, who’s determined to keep the lawyer under his personal control, neither dangers nor complications arise. You’d wonder why Stone thought it worth his while to be involved with the whole affair, if it weren’t for the quality sex: with Carrie, with undercover cop Mitzi Reynolds, with Mitzi and Parsons’s gallery assistant Rita Gammage—but not, readers will be reassured to hear, with the client’s daughter or with Larsen’s willing “wife.”
Competent, routine work less notable for suspense or sleuthing chops than for what goes on, early, often and satisfyingly, between the sheets.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-399-15611-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.
An Arizona accountant with a penchant for solving murders lands a fishy case.
Sophie "Phee" Kimball might lead a dull life if it weren’t for her mother, Harriet Plunkett, and Harriet’s neurotic Chiweenie, Streetman. As it is, Harriet lives near her daughter in Sun City West and has a wide circle of zany friends who’ve helped Phee solve several mysteries (Molded 4 Murder, 2019, etc.) while she’s been working for Williams Investigations along with her boyfriend, Marshall, a former police officer. While Phee’s visiting Harriet one day, Streetman dashes over to the neighbors’ barbecue grill and unearths a dead body under a tarp. As usual, the overwhelmed local police ask Williams Investigations to help—er, consult. Harriet’s main concern is getting costumes made for the reluctant Streetman, whom she’s entered in a series of contests starting with Halloween and progressing through Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, and St. Patrick’s Day. One of her friends is an accomplished seamstress who goes all out making gorgeous costumes that will beat an obnoxious lady who looks down on mutts. The dead man is identified as Cameron Tully, a seafood distributor, who was poisoned by the locally ubiquitous sago pine. At the first dog contest, Elaine Meschow has to be rushed to the hospital after she gets a dose of the same thing. The owner of a gourmet dog food company, Elaine is lucky enough to recover. After Streetman takes second place, Harriet’s team redoubles its efforts for the next contest while Phee and Marshall, who are moving into a new place together, continue to hunt for clues. A restaurant holdup and a scheme to use empty houses for hookups for high school kids add to the confusion.
You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2455-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on...
After five adventures for Boston shamus Patrick Kenzie and his off-again lover Angela Gennaro (Prayers for Rain, 1999, etc.), Lehane tries his hand at a crossover novel that’s as dark as any of Patrick’s cases.
Even the 1975 prologue is bleak. Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus are playing, or fighting, outside Sean’s parents’ house in the Point neighborhood of East Buckingham when a car pulls up, one of the two men inside flashes a badge, and Sean and Jimmy’s friend Dave Boyle gets bundled inside, allegedly to be driven home to his mother for a scolding but actually to get kidnapped. Though Dave escapes after a few days, he never really outlives his ordeal, and 25 years later it’s Jimmy’s turn to join him in hell when his daughter Katie is shot and beaten to death in the wilds of Pen Park, and State Trooper Sean, just returned from suspension, gets assigned to the case. Sean knows that both Dave and Jimmy have been in more than their share of trouble in the past. And he’s got an especially close eye on Jimmy, whose marriage brought him close to the aptly named Savage family and who’s done hard time for robbery. It would be just like Jimmy, Sean knows, to ignore his friend’s official efforts and go after the killer himself. But Sean would be a lot more worried if he knew what Dave’s wife Celeste knows: that hours after catching sight of Katie in the last bar she visited on the night of her death, Dave staggered home covered with somebody else’s blood. Burrowing deep into his three sorry heroes and the hundred ties that bind them unbearably close, Lehane weaves such a spellbinding tale that it’s easy to overlook the ramshackle mystery behind it all.
An undisciplined but powerfully lacerating story, by an author who knows every block of the neighborhood and every hair on his characters’ heads.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16316-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
