A B-minus mystery that’s a straight-A legal thriller, with a final scene as satisfying as it is disturbing.
Defense attorney Dylan Aster’s unblemished trial record is threatened by an impossible case he gets sucked into.
Madeline Ismera, a public defender in Oregon’s Jackson County, reaches out to a friend in the DA’s office of Nevada’s Clark County to ask Dylan for help exactly because of his stellar reputation. The defendant she’s been assigned, diagnosed schizophrenic Arlo Ward, is accused of a horrific crime in Coyote Canyon: the slaughter, partial dismemberment, and lewd posing of three young campers (a fourth, Holly Fallows, escaped only by jumping off a cliff ahead of her shadowy pursuer). The police picked him up covered with blood very close to the crime scene, and he’s actually confessed to the murders in the hope of attracting media attention that will build the audience for the tell-all book he plans to write in order to leave the proceeds to his wife and daughter. Meeting with Arlo, Dylan and his law partner, Lily Ricci, quickly realize that the best defense they can possibly provide will have to contend with an obstacle even more daunting than ravenously competitive Jackson County DA Kelly Whitewolf: Arlo’s own refusal to plead not guilty. “I think he wants to believe he did this,” Madeline tells Dylan. What can a lawyer do when everyone he meets, from the prosecutor to the police to the witnesses to his own client, is determined to thwart his attempts to save the client’s life? The courtroom duels are correspondingly sharp even though the outcome seems like a forgone conclusion. Or does it?
A B-minus mystery that’s a straight-A legal thriller, with a final scene as satisfying as it is disturbing.Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2266-8
Page Count: 349
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Slippery suspects and evildoers among the usually private and quiet Amish.
A series of brutal murders rocks the quiet community of Painters Mill, Ohio.
A young Amish girl playing hide-and-seek in a brushy area near a creek finds dismembered body parts. The early years of police Chief Kate Burkholder, who grew up Amish and has come to terms with leaving that life behind, give her insight into crimes committed in her county, which has a large Amish population. Although there’s always some crime among the Amish, something about the killing and dismemberment of landscaper and nursery owner Samuel Yutzy has a big-city feel. Kate’s husband, John Tomasetti, is an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation who provides the services small-town police departments lack. Kate and John knew Samuel, and when they check his place of business, they find a dehydrated buggy horse and a lot of blood. Samuel’s parents admit that he had a wild rumspringa—a period when Amish youth try out the secular world before committing to the church—which included a girlfriend and some shifty non-Amish men, but say that he’d recently returned to the fold. A picture of the girlfriend leads them to a gentlemen’s club, and his parents reveal that he was being sued by someone over a landscape job gone wrong. When Kate tries to find Samuel’s best friend, Aaron Shetler, she learns that he’s been missing from work, and soon his body is found stuffed in a drum. Searching for the girlfriend gets Kate drugged and warned to drop the case. Never one to give up, she discovers a tangled web of deceit and a link to human trafficking that just may be the death of her.
Slippery suspects and evildoers among the usually private and quiet Amish.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781250781147
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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