Parker (Silent Joe, 2001, etc.) scores again with a heroine whose steely toughness is leavened by warmth and vulnerability....
The Archie Wildcrafts—young, good-looking, sweet-natured—had joined in a marriage that seemed destined for the long haul. Then suddenly, she’s shot dead, and for a while he’s nearer dead than alive, a bullet lodged in his brain. Though he beats the odds and survives, the investigators of the Orange County Sheriff’s department find the case taking shape in a way they hate, as a murder and an unsuccessful suicide, with the alleged perpetrator, Deputy Archie, one of their own. To Sergeant Merci Rayborn, however, the whole deal screams frame. Yes, there’s Gwen’s blood on Archie’s bathrobe and Archie’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, but to Merci, weaned by her mentors on the bedrock idea that “there’s a lot more to a homicide case than fingerprints,” it’s all off-kilter. From the outset, her detective’s instincts have seized on an essential truth: Archie loved Gwen and couldn’t have killed her. In the meantime, an ambitious, headline-hunting DA, sensing an easy conviction, wants Archie before a grand jury. Merci resists, stalls, maneuvers. Sniffing here and there, she finally gets a whiff of a money trail that leads to a pair of ruthless Russian wiseguys whose impact on Gwen was both surprising and pernicious. But Merci’s not their only stalker. Turns out that a pair of vengeful ghosts are along for the ride.
Parker (Silent Joe, 2001, etc.) scores again with a heroine whose steely toughness is leavened by warmth and vulnerability. It’s a pleasure to spend time with her.Pub Date: April 24, 2002
ISBN: 0-7868-6804-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
Creepy and compelling.
A friendship between two very different women is threatened when long-buried secrets rise to the surface.
Lonely and overweight stay-at-home mother Frances Metcalfe feels like an outsider among the stylish moms at Seattle’s exclusive Forrester Academy. It doesn’t help that her son, Marcus, whom she fiercely loves in spite of his challenges, has ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder, which causes him to act out in alarming ways. She knows that her handsome husband, Jason, loves her, but she's painfully aware of the stares she gets that seem to ask how someone like him could be with someone like her. When the beautiful, elegant Kate Randolph befriends Frances, she’s thrilled, and Kate’s son, Charles, proves to be a calming influence on Marcus. Sleepovers for the kids and get-togethers with Kate and her husband, Robert, become the norm, and Kate brings out an adventurous side of Frances that she thought was lost underneath the stress of caring for Marcus. However, Kate’s 14-year-old daughter Daisy’s behavior is becoming increasingly self-destructive, calling attention to a darkness that lies just beneath the intoxicating veneer of Kate and Frances’ friendship. And there is real darkness here: One of these women is really Amber Kunik, who was involved in the sensationalized murder of 15-year-old Courtney Carey in 1996, supposedly while under the control of an abusive boyfriend—but is it Frances or Kate? Harding (The Party, 2017, etc.) expertly builds subtle menace and does her best to keep readers guessing as to which woman is Amber, whose heinous crimes are revealed through snippets of her chilling courtroom testimony. When Amber’s identity is finally revealed, the other woman must decide whether forgiveness is possible while confronting her own dark secret. A bit of gallows humor, such as when Frances fantasizes outrageous ways that she could kill a mom who’s particularly rude to her, leavens the dark subject matter.
Creepy and compelling.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7424-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
As in summer movies, a triple dose of violence conceals the absence of real menace when neither victims nor avengers stir...
Dr. Alex Cross has left Metro DC Homicide for the FBI, but it’s business as usual in this laughably rough-hewn fairy tale of modern-day white slavery.
According to reliable sources, more people are being sold into slavery than ever before, and it all seems to be going down on the FBI’s watch. Atlanta ex-reporter Elizabeth Connolly, who looks just like Claudia Schiffer, is the ninth target over the past two years to be abducted by a husband-and-wife pair who travel the country at the behest of the nefarious Pasha Sorokin, the Wolf of the Red Mafiya. The only clues are those deliberately left behind by the kidnappers, who snatch fashion designer Audrey Meek from the King of Prussia Mall in full view of her children, or patrons like Audrey’s purchaser, who ends up releasing her and killing himself. Who you gonna call? Alex Cross, of course. Even though he still hasn’t finished the Agency’s training course, all the higher-ups he runs into, from hardcases who trust him to lickspittles seething with envy, have obviously read his dossier (Four Blind Mice, 2002, etc.), and they know the new guy is “close to psychic,” a “one-man flying squad” who’s already a legend, “like Clarice Starling in the movies.” It’s lucky that Cross’s reputation precedes him, because his fond creator doesn’t give him much to do here but chase suspects identified by obliging tipsters and worry about his family (Alex Jr.’s mother, alarmed at Cross’s dangerous job, is suing for custody) while the Wolf and his cronies—Sterling, Mr. Potter, the Art Director, Sphinx, and the Marvel—kidnap more dishy women (and the occasional gay man) and kill everybody who gets in their way, and quite a few poor souls who don’t.
As in summer movies, a triple dose of violence conceals the absence of real menace when neither victims nor avengers stir the slightest sympathy.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2003
ISBN: 0-316-60290-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2003
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