A page-turning addition to a series and a chilling but enjoyable read.
Two seemingly unrelated, tragic events intersect in this fourth installment of a mystery series starring a police officer known affectionately as “the Tracker.”
On Jan. 7, 2019, a fierce storm rages off the small Oregon coastal village of Driftwood. Three crab fishermen, Derek Lea, Rick Perrins, and skipper Carl Hamisu, are aboard the Johnny B. Goode when the engine suddenly dies. Before the Coast Guard can reach them, the boat is hit broadside by a massive wave and capsizes. When news breaks the next day that all three men were lost at sea, the tightknit community is overcome by grief. Police officer Charley Whitehorse, who knew Carl, feels there is something vaguely troubling about the calamity. How could the captain, who was so meticulous about his boat and experienced in sailing the treacherous waters around the Dungeness sandbars, get caught by the storm? But moments after Charley enters Driftwood’s three-person police station, a new problem presents itself. Chiara, the delightfully quirky, young, and especially competent assistant who keeps middle-aged Charley and his partner, Tony Esperanza, up to date about social media and internet searches, fields a phone call from the distressed mother of 21-year-old Patricia Carmody. The parent, who lives in Rhode Island, has been unable to contact her daughter residing in Driftwood’s neighboring town of Neskowin. The calls keep going to voicemail, and she is certain something has happened to Patricia. She is right. Cook’s engrossing narrative maintains a steady pace, employing a successful mix of police procedural and violent action. There is a plethora of bad guys—from the head of the Russian mob in Portland, Oregon, to lower level local thugs and a notorious Russian assassin—who have Charley in their sights. But the author provides some relief from the darkness of drugs, human trafficking, sabotage, and death with light bantering and conviviality among Charley, Tony, and Chiara. And although she only has a supporting role, Patricia is a strong force to be reckoned with, a determined and resourceful character. A not totally satisfying conclusion suggests the possibility of a fifth volume.
A page-turning addition to a series and a chilling but enjoyable read.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-62-182946-9
Page Count: 295
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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