The ending is improbable and sappy, but Massey’s pungent take on mixed marriages and East-West culture clashes is first-rate.
Something’s fishy in Washington’s newest Japanese restaurant.
First, Kendall Howard Johnson, DC darling and fundraiser for Senator Harp Snowden, invites her cousin Rei Shimura, newly settled in Washington after being booted out of Japan (The Samurai’s Daughter, 2003, etc.), for drinks at undercapitalized, about-to-open Bento. Stepping outside to gab on her cell phone, Kendall is promptly abducted. When pesky Rei, a dealer of Oriental antiques and an inveterate sleuth, helps locate her, Andrea Norton, Bento’s half-black, half-Japanese hostess, turns to Rei for help in finding her own mom, who abandoned her as a toddler back in the ’70s. Before long, the snooping Rei is abducted, too, and it’s unclear whether someone is targeting the cousins, starting a restaurant war between Bento and the neighboring Plum Ink, or hushing up the truth about Andrea’s mom’s disappearance and the part her husband’s second wife’s family may have played in it. Rei escapes her captors but miscarries in the process, causing serious cracks in her relationship with her boyfriend and sorrow in her aunt Norie, visiting from Yokohama and bent on planning Rei’s wedding. The reasons for Kendall’s mishap and the long-ago war bride’s decampment wend past vials of crack cocaine and a Vietnam cover-up before they’re resolved by a grenade toss, a stint in rehab, and some delicious meals served up by Bento’s talented chef.
The ending is improbable and sappy, but Massey’s pungent take on mixed marriages and East-West culture clashes is first-rate.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-621296-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
A suspenseful tale of hypocrisy, greed, and cunning finally overcome by social conscience.
A pair of Regency sleuths take on a miscarriage of justice in the past that leads to murders in the present.
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, despises injustice in every form, and his wife, Hero, is a committed reformer even though her father, Lord Jarvis, is cousin to the Prince Regent and a major power behind the throne (Who Slays the Wicked, 2019, etc.). Shortly after Hero spots a child watching their house, Devlin’s valet, Jules Calhoun, goes out and returns with news that someone he knows has been murdered. Nicholas Hayes, youngest son of the late Earl of Seaforth, was convicted of murder, sent to Australia, and thought to have died. But now he’s returned with Ji, a child he’s brought from China, only to be stabbed to death with a sickle in Pennington’s Tea Gardens. Why would Hayes risk his life to return to England, where he would be hanged if caught? The question plagues Devlin as he reconsiders the evidence that led to the conviction of Hayes. He revisits the scandal that was hushed up back when Hayes was accused of kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy man and shooting to death a married woman on whom he’d reportedly set his eye. The other suspects, all wealthy and well-connected, include Hayes’ cousin Ethan, who’s succeeded to the title since Hayes' two older brothers died before their father, and the Comte de Compans, whose wife he was convicted of killing. The more he learns of Hayes, the more Devlin is convinced he was an innocent man who took the blame for things he never did, including kidnapping Theo Brownbeck’s daughter, Katherine, with whom he was actually eloping and whom Brownbeck immediately married off to Sir Lindsey Forbes, a power in the East India Company. Hayes’ murder is followed by the deaths of several of his enemies. If Hayes were alive, Devlin would suspect him; since he’s not, Devlin and Hero risk their lives following clues no one wants to see uncovered.
A suspenseful tale of hypocrisy, greed, and cunning finally overcome by social conscience.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-399-58568-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
No more meeting-cute for romancer Hoag. Here, couples bond over body bags as the author turns her deft hand to a grisly crime thriller, skillfully constructed if less than completely page- turning. In Night Sins (1995), the first of Hoag's two-part combo, hard-nosed agent Megan O'Malley came to rural Deer Lake, Minnesota, fell in love with hard-nosed police chief Mitch Holt, and together with him tracked down Garrett Wright, the evil genius who kidnapped eight-year-old Josh Kirkwood and then beat up Megan, breaking nearly every bone in her hand—at least twice. This time, hard-nosed prosecutor Ellen North, who left the Twin Cities to get away from big-city violence, wants to rescue Josh and prosecute Wright to the full extent of the law. Complicating her case, though, is, first, handsome southerner Jay Butler Brooks, a millionaire author of true-crime novels whose face has been on the cover of People and whose sexy, smoky drawl insinuates itself under Ellen's tough exterior. (Brooks himself has come to Deer Lake to escape his own personal devils and to cash in on a great story, but he'll stay to be redeemed by Ellen's courage and dedication.) The second complication is young Josh himself, who's returned but is too traumatized to testify. Third is Wright's greasy big-time defense attorney, Tony Costello, who used to be Ellen's lover before he betrayed her. Fourth, no one believes that mild-mannered Professor Wright, an acknowledged community good-guy, could have done such a terrible thing. And, finally, someone keeps littering the icy Minnesota landscape with other bodies, including one of another kidnapped boy. After a lot of gut-wrenching dedication by Ellen, Jay, Megan, and Mitch, there's a bloody if positive resolution and both couples limp off into the sunset. This time out, Hoag abandons some of her outrageous romantic style to investigate more serious moral issues. Worthy, but much less fun.
Pub Date: March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-553-09959-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1995
© Copyright 2025 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.
