Although Harris (Secrets in the Stones, 2016, etc.) gives away a little too much a little too soon, she still combines two...
A reinterpretation of Jack the Ripper with a supernatural touch.
East Enders Constance Piper and her sister, Flo, must remain one step ahead of the coppers to support themselves and their widowed mother in 1888 London. Constance sells oranges and flowers to the gentry while Flo lifts their valuables. But at least they don't have to sell their bodies, unlike some of the other women they know. Now that three such unfortunates have been found with slit throats and missing organs, Constance and Flo are at even greater risk from the Whitechapel Murderer. Constance also worries that Emily Tindall, her mentor and teacher from the neighborhood church mission, hasn’t been around for some time. Constance misses her lessons with Miss Tindall, who taught her eager 18-year-old pupil to read and practice basic etiquette in hopes that Constance could escape to a marginally better life. Meanwhile, Emily narrates the unhappy domestic tale of Terence Cutler, an obstetrician and fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons whose bitter wife, Geraldine, has left him. And Constance, after a strange experience with an illusionist, has a dream foreseeing the fourth murder of a prostitute. All London quakes when a fifth woman is killed, and the headless torso of a sixth woman is found in the construction site for New Scotland Yard. Then Geraldine’s sister comes to town and, with some subtle nudging from Emily, enlists Constance’s help in searching for Geraldine. As Constance is pulled further into the world of the man claiming responsibility for the murders, she also reunites with Emily in a way she never would have guessed. With her mentor’s guidance, she finds the strength and courage to seek justice for the sixth victim.
Although Harris (Secrets in the Stones, 2016, etc.) gives away a little too much a little too soon, she still combines two perceptive points of view with a convincing portrait of London’s seamier side and a neat twist of an ending.Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0654-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
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
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
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.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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