bookshelf

ST. AGATHA'S BREAST

Name: ST. AGATHA'S BREAST
Author: T.C. Van Adler
ISBN: 0-312-20019-6

by T.C. Van Adler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 10, 1999

bookshelf

A debut thriller set in an Italian monastery—many generations removed from the abbey of The Name of the Rose, but completely faithful to its spirit. Had Martin Luther ever turned his hand to potboilers, he might have bequeathed us with something like this: a decadent abbey, inhabited by perverted maniacs, falls under the rule of a faithless prior whose cynicism is outstripped only by that of his venal underlings who, with Napoleonic zeal, busy themselves (between orgies) with looting and embezzling the abbey’s treasury. Long forgotten amid the plundered splendors of the abbey is a magnificent portrait of St. Agatha, signed —Nicolas Poussin, 1629.— The monks of San Redempto probably know more about Poussin than they do about St. Agatha, but neither name is likely to excite much interest among them—until the portrait suddenly vanishes. It begins to look as if a crime has disturbed the abbey’s peace. Whom shall we look to, for either guidance or arrest? Father Prior, a sadomasochist and fascist, whose subterranean torture chamber becomes the scene of an even worse crime than the portrait’s theft? The coprophilic Father Otger? Antonio, the porter, or his brother Manolo, the cook (both of whom have turned a tidy profit over the years through their diligent manipulation of the abbey’s accounts)? What about the seemingly innocent, apparently simple Father Brocard, assigned to the investigation by the prior as a means of ensuring that case will never be solved? Or the art historian Hoop Rhutten, whose present connections within the art world disguise his former life as a monk of San Redempto? Under Luther’s stern gaze, the painting’s disappearance would have seemed trivial, compared with the barbarities practiced daily at San Redempto. A caricature of religion and religious life, too heavy-handed to be funny, too obvious to be diverting.

Pub Date: Feb. 10, 1999

ISBN: 0-312-20019-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998

Categories:

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE | GENERAL MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

bookshelf

A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

bookshelf

Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
FIRE AND BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
COLD, COLD BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BONE CODE
by Kathy Reichs

bookshelf

BADLANDS

by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...

bookshelf

Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.

Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.