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Behind The Mask

A vivid, suspenseful story about a torn agent on a complex covert mission.

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    Best Books Of 2016

An FBI agent working on her first undercover assignment becomes too close to one of the domestic terrorists she seeks to expose in this debut crime novel.

Louisianan and FBI Special Agent Alexis “Lexie” Montgomery’s initial covert mission requires an alias—Alexis Marie “Lexie” Taylor—and a temporary move to Los Angeles. In LA, the petite 29-year-old with “a bit of a hippie streak” is charged with the task of unmasking clandestine violators of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. Shortly after Lexie embarks on “Operation Blind Fury” and enrolls in a class at Santa Monica College to give her alias some credibility, another Southerner, Savannah Riley, starts her freshman year at the University of Southern California. Savannah’s roommate is pierced, inked, vegan animal activist Haley Crosby. When the roommates attend a meeting of the New World Militia, a radical group that uses violence to save animals, Savannah meets heavily tattooed, gauge-eared Nick Harris. She finds him a sexy, “dark, dangerous man” who would not “fit into her old Southern life,” and they soon become lovers. Lexie’s plan to get asked to participate in underground, illegal action by members of an animal activist terrorist cell brings her into contact with Savannah, Nick, and Haley prior to the trio’s involvement in an NWM assignment that turns deadly. But by the time that happens, Lexie and Savannah have become BFFs. The agent begins to empathize with the passion of the activists, and the gravity of the bureau’s undercover motto, “You build relationships to betray relationships,” weighs heavily on her. The author, a retired FBI agent, worked as an undercover operative for most of her career. Her experience with the activities and emotional involvement of agents makes this a much richer story than most undercover novels. Tension mounts as Lexie becomes increasingly conflicted about her assignment. Dialogue rings true throughout, regardless of the age of the characters. Ridenour’s flair for description is another plus; for example, an activist’s house is described as a place in which “hardwood floors were scratched, and dog hair collected in the corners.” In this serious novel, there are welcome humorous moments, as when a senior agent treats Lexie to a regular coffee, not a latte, because “You have to earn latte status.”

A vivid, suspenseful story about a torn agent on a complex covert mission.

Pub Date: April 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-63489-903-1

Page Count: 344

Publisher: Wise Ink Creative Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

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

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THE LIFE WE BURY

Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...

A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.

Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk. 

Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.

Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7

Page Count: 300

Publisher: Seventh Street Books

Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014

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