A verbose but engaging crime tale.
A brilliant chemistry student is rescued from a criminal life by her professor in Reeves’ (Bada Bing in Brooklyn, 2012, etc.) gritty thriller sequel.
Twenty-something Candy Dyer manages to ace her tests by day while dealing drugs to her fellow students at night. But when she tries to give up her criminal ways, her two business partners feel betrayed, so they sear and deform the left side of her face with a hot iron. Candy’s chemistry professor, Richard Bucceroni, rescues her, and she soon embarks on a tenure-track academic chemistry career at Urban University in Brooklyn, New York. Meanwhile, she seeks revenge on her attackers, tries to sort out her complicated feelings toward Bucceroni, and investigates various murders of faculty members at the college. Along the way, Candy, Bucceroni, and Detective Dom Mancini of the New York City Police Department dodge bullets and knives while also navigating a cutthroat university culture. Bucceroni coaches Candy on the importance of surviving appointment committees and on the internal back-stabbing and back-scratching of academia, such as when Bucceroni advances an untalented professor in order to secure Candy a tenure recommendation. These scenes depict a passive-aggressive version of the real gangland wars that plague Urban U, as students self-segregate by race and battle over turf, even during final exams. This odd noir thriller is part Breaking Bad, part The Big Heat, with a touch of Bridget Jones’s Diary in the mix (although Candy is more worldly, incisive, and violent than Bridget ever was). It’s absurdist and cynical—and it works. Reeves nails the hard-boiled narrative tone by giving Candy an insightful, even winsome tenderness coupled with a sharp, dry wit that’s often delightful. At times, the narration unnecessarily repeats earlier plot points, and there are pages of unattributed dialogue that may confuse some readers. Overall, however, this is a very strong effort that’s fun, touching, and disquieting by turns.
A verbose but engaging crime tale.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5078-6528-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A smoothly written contemporary caper paired with a murder mystery and a little meet-the-Jetsons futurism. No one does...
Written under her real name and her pseudonym, two books in one from megaselling Roberts/Robb.
Book one: Laine Tavish, gorgeous redhead and owner of a small-town antique store, isn’t about to tell the cops that she knew the old man who was hit by a car right outside her shop. Just before he took his dying breath, she recognized Willy Young, partner in crime to Big Jack O’Hara, her father. Their biggest heist: millions of dollars in hot diamonds. Her father went to prison, but not Willy, whose last words were “left it for you.” What did he leave—and where? Enter Max Gannon, insurance investigator and all-around stud, with thick, wavy, run-your-fingers-through-it hair, tawny eyes that remind Laine of a tiger, and a delicious Georgia drawl. He beds Laine pronto, and they solve the case. But some of the diamonds are still missing. . . . Book two: it’s 50 years later, and New York traffic is slower than ever: just try getting a helicab on a rainy day. But Samantha Gannon, author of a bestseller called Hot Rocks based on her grandparents’ experiences in the long-ago case, eventually makes it home from the airport to find her house-sitter Andrea dead, throat cut. Another investigation begins, spearheaded by Eve Dallas, a tough-talking but very appealing New York cop married to Roarke, a rich, eccentric genius who just barely manages to stay on the right side of the law. Is the murderer after the rest of the diamonds? And is he or she related to the master thief who betrayed Samantha’s great-grandfather? There are more burning questions, and Eve wants answers—but, first, get Central on the telelink and program the Autochef for pastrami on rye.
A smoothly written contemporary caper paired with a murder mystery and a little meet-the-Jetsons futurism. No one does Suspense Lite better than Nora.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-15106-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
Determined to shield her family from violence, a woman becomes a fierce freelance crime fighter in this mostly satisfying...
In the aftermath of a horrific crime, a woman makes herself over into a powerful protector—or perhaps an avenger.
Pinter (The Castle, 2019, etc.) already has the Henry Parker thriller series under his belt. In this book he introduces another potential series character, Rachel Marin. The story opens with a warm domestic scene of a young woman making dinner for her husband and two kids when a shattering (but undescribed) discovery intervenes. Jump ahead seven years, and single mom Rachel is living in another town several states away. When a mugger jumps her as she’s walking home from work, she leaves him bleeding in the street and hurries home to her bookish son, Eric, and sweet little daughter, Megan. Keeping them safe is her mission in life. But when she sees a news report about a body found on the ice beneath a nearby bridge, she’s riveted. The cops assigned to the case, detectives John Serrano and Leslie Tally, are shocked to discover the body is that of the town’s disgraced former mayor, Constance Wright. They’re even more shocked when Rachel, whom they don’t know, sends Serrano a message that the death was no suicide: “Constance Wright was murdered. And I can prove it.” When Serrano and Tally go to question Wright’s sketchy ex-husband, Rachel shows up at the same time, and they don’t know whether to order her away or be grateful for her help. Pinter builds a complex plot on the dual mysteries of Constance’s murder and Rachel’s transformation from suburban mom to crack investigator and lethal streetfighter. But the story has so many subplots and timelines that it can feel overstuffed, and some crucial questions asked early on are answered so late the reader might be surprised to be reminded of them. Pinter creates engaging characters, though, and keeps the suspense taut.
Determined to shield her family from violence, a woman becomes a fierce freelance crime fighter in this mostly satisfying thriller.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0590-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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