by Victoria Laurie ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 4, 2017
Wisecracking Laurie (A Grave Prediction, 2016, etc.) is often amusing, but she might be more consistent in indulging her...
When a partner in her husband’s panic-room business goes missing, a psychic investigator tries to keep her cool long enough to figure out if the partner’s gone rogue or if he’s trapped in something bigger.
The seriously wealthy of Austin, Texas, not content to spend beaucoup bucks on their seven-figure houses, are retrofitting those houses with top-of-the-line, post-hoc panic rooms. Although best friends Abigail Cooper and Candice Fusco try to stay out of their husbands’ business of building these rooms for the upper crust, they can’t help but get saddled with some of the administrative and sales work involved in the process. When Dave McKenzie, the third partner in the venture, goes missing after a normal day’s work, Abby and Candice lead the search. Making nice with the rich and snooty isn’t really Abby’s area of expertise, but investigating is, since she’s a real-life psychic and a regular consultant for the FBI, of which her husband, Dutch, along with Candice and her husband, Brice, are also agents. Soon after the set of friends begin their investigation, they turn up a lead: a bloody handprint at a crime scene that they think is Dave’s. But the handprint also acts as a lead for the Austin PD, who believe Dave may be implicated in the multiple homicide at the site where the print is found, and they begin their own investigation to find him. Abby taps into her psychic eye when she can, though her suspicions seem to lead her back to uber-wealthy meanie Murielle McKenna, who’s got her own eye on Dutch. Does Abby’s gift offer special insight into Dave’s whereabouts, or is she blinded by her hotheadedness? Dave’s life may depend on the answer.
Wisecracking Laurie (A Grave Prediction, 2016, etc.) is often amusing, but she might be more consistent in indulging her comedic asides and applying her well-reasoned motives to the big reveal.Pub Date: July 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-47390-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
More by Victoria Laurie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2019
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
29
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
A convicted killer’s list of five people he wants dead runs the gamut from the wife he’s already had murdered to franchise heroine Ali Reynolds.
Back in the day, women came from all over to consult Santa Clarita fertility specialist Dr. Edward Gilchrist. Many of them left his care happily pregnant, never dreaming that the father of the babies they carried was none other than the physician himself, who donated his own sperm rather than that of the handsome, athletic, disease-free men pictured in his scrapbook. When Alexandra Munsey’s son, Evan, is laid low by the kidney disease he’s inherited from his biological father and she returns to Gilchrist in search of the donor’s medical records, the roof begins to fall in on him. By the time it’s done falling, he’s serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for commissioning the death of his wife, Dawn, the former nurse and sometime egg donor who’d turned on him. With nothing left to lose, Gilchrist tattoos himself with the initials of five people he blames for his fall: Dawn; Leo Manuel Aurelio, the hit man he’d hired to dispose of her; Kaitlyn Todd, the nurse/receptionist who took Dawn’s place; Alex Munsey, whose search for records upset his apple cart; and Ali Reynolds, the TV reporter who’d helped put Alex in touch with the dozen other women who formed the Progeny Project because their children looked just like hers. No matter that Ali’s been out of both California and the news business for years; Gilchrist and his enablers know that revenge can’t possibly be served too cold. Wonder how far down that list they’ll get before Ali, aided once more by Frigg, the methodical but loose-cannon AI first introduced in Duel to the Death (2018), turns on them?
Proficient but eminently predictable. Amid all the time shifts and embedded backstories, the most surprising feature is how little the boundary-challenged AI, who gets into the case more or less inadvertently, differs from your standard human sidekick with issues.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5101-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
BOOK REVIEW
by J.A. Jance
by Lorna Barrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 13, 2019
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.
Too much free time leads a New Hampshire bookseller into yet another case of murder.
Now that Tricia Miles has Pixie Poe and Mr. Everett practically running her bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue, she finds herself at loose ends. Her wealthy sister, Angelica, who in the guise of Nigela Ricita has invested heavily in making Stoneham a bookish tourist attraction, is entering the amateur competition for the Great Booktown Bake-Off. So Tricia, who’s recently taken up baking as a hobby, decides to join her and spends a lot of time looking for the perfect cupcake recipe. A visit to another bookstore leaves Tricia witnessing a nasty argument between owner Joyce Widman and next-door neighbor Vera Olson over the trimming of tree branches that hang over Joyce’s yard—also overheard by new town police officer Cindy Pearson. After Tricia accepts Joyce’s offer of some produce from her garden, they find Vera skewered by a pitchfork, and when Police Chief Grant Baker arrives, Joyce is his obvious suspect. Ever since Tricia moved to Stoneham, the homicide rate has skyrocketed (Poisoned Pages, 2018, etc.), and her history with Baker is fraught. She’s also become suspicious about the activities at Pets-A-Plenty, the animal shelter where Vera was a dedicated volunteer. Tricia’s offered her expertise to the board, but president Toby Kingston has been less than welcoming. With nothing but baking on her calendar, Tricia has plenty of time to investigate both the murder and her vague suspicions about the shelter. Plenty of small-town friendships and rivalries emerge in her quest for the truth.
An anodyne visit with Tricia and her friends and enemies hung on a thin mystery.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0272-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More by Lorna Barrett
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.