This intense, gripping racetrack drama is a winner by a nose.
A husband and wife—entangled in a murder case—deal with conflicts and danger in this horse racing mystery.
Larry Potter, the racetrack veterinarian at Woodbine, near Toronto, gets involved in an investigation when Golden Boy, a colt starting with 50-to-1 odds, collapses and dies during the race. Toxicology tests and sleuthing reveal that a groom was paid to slip cocaine to Golden Boy, resulting in a heart attack. Larry’s wife, Inspector Jenna Lawson, gets roped in when the horse’s adulterous trainer, Clement Montgomery, is murdered and castrated in his apartment (The crime scene “was one of the most brutal Lawson had ever encountered”). Toronto businessman Jonathan Piggott is later killed in an identical manner. Jenna ultimately has Montgomery’s widow, Trish, arrested for her husband’s murder' despite her having little connection to Piggott. Jenna’s investigation of Montgomery’s killing leads to tension in her marriage. Larry had been longtime friends with both Montgomerys. After Jenna asks Larry to step back from the homicide probe, he instead redoubles his efforts to find the race fixer, hoping there is a connection to Montgomery’s murder that could clear Trish. His efforts eventually pay off but in a manner that puts him in peril. While Jenna admittedly has doubts about Trish’s guilt, it takes a third, identical homicide in upstate New York to have her team look at a different suspect. Yet even that effort isn’t enough to yield a neat conclusion. Davis’ thriller succeeds despite a handful of dubious narrative choices. Jenna opts for the obvious when she arrests Montgomery’s widow, despite Trish’s having a tenuous relationship with the second victim. Likewise, Larry goes against his wife’s wishes when he continues to investigate the killings, setting himself up for danger. But the author’s research lends authenticity to the novel’s horse racing and policing backdrops. In addition, his decision to tell the story from the perspectives of Larry, Jenna, and the unnamed serial killer, the only fully developed characters, proves effective. And, in an enjoyable twist, the case appears to be closed when it really isn’t. The positives decidedly outweigh the negatives in this engrossing whodunit.
This intense, gripping racetrack drama is a winner by a nose.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-03-914553-5
Page Count: 328
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.
A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.
At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250328137
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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