A twisty and highly readable thriller that’s occasionally hampered by cop-fiction clichés.
An unconventional detective hunts for a killer among the churches of New Orleans in Zappa’s latest police procedural.
Detective Lt. Jo Crowder and Detective Sgt. Sid Steele catch a murder case in the middle of Easter Weekwhen the body of young girl is found dumped on the steps of St. Stephan’s Cathedral, one of the oldest and most venerated churches for the 3.5 million Catholics who call the Big Easy home. The head of the city’s Violent Crime and Homicide Division, Frank O’Malley, reflects glumly on the fact that his town is statistically “the fourth most dangerous city in which to live and visit,” but he knows that 36-year-old Crowder will get results. She not only has degrees in criminal justice and forensic science; she’s also an expert marksman, has black belts in judo and karate, and has the highest case-closure rate in the department by far. In addition, she’s completely consumed by her job: “she ate it, drank it, and lived it day and night. It made her irrepressible, confident and bold.” She and Steele, her partner of three years, begin sifting clues and sorting suspects, but the process is unexpectedly complicated by an unstable copycat who is all too eager to confess to the crime; they must also deal with the machinations of scheming District Attorney Max Hellman, “an arrogant, self-centered, showboat opportunist” who manages to thwart their work at every turn. Police finally apprehend a solid-looking suspect named Miguel Diaz, but Crowder’s instincts are telling her that they have the wrong man.
Zappa assembles relatively standard crime-thriller elements in a satisfying manner that will appeal to fans of Ed McBain or Jeffery Deaver’s sturdy procedurals. Crowder is clearly the star of the show here; indeed, the author doesn’t bother to restrain his own admiration for his hero. She can be short-tempered and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but she’s otherwise essentially perfect, resembling the older-and-wiser version of FBI agent Clarice Starling in Thomas Harris’ 1999 thriller sequel, Hannibal. Religious elements play a key role in the narrative, as Crowder’s suspicions quickly fall on a respected churchman of New Orleans—an explosive development that could easily get her cashiered if it misfires; the fact that she’s an agnostic working a religiously charged case makes the situation even more delicate. Zappa beautifully captures these multifaceted tensions in a way that keeps the story moving along at an easy clip. However, the prose shows a decided weakness for cop-show cliches; for instance, does anyone actually say “Bingo” when figuring something out, as fictional cops often do? Habitual readers of police thrillers will undoubtedly have plenty of patience when the story introduces a crusty coroner or when Crowder advises Steele to “Think outside the box,” but such moments still manage to feel like unnecessary filler. The book’s climax, by contrast, is a marvel of suspenseful precision, and the key confrontation at the story’s conclusion will have readers holding their breath.
A twisty and highly readable thriller that’s occasionally hampered by cop-fiction clichés.Pub Date: April 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-922329-15-8
Page Count: 351
Publisher: AIA Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.
Four residents of Coopers Chase, a British retirement village, compete with the police to solve a murder in this debut novel.
The Thursday Murder Club started out with a group of septuagenarians working on old murder cases culled from the files of club founder Elizabeth Best’s friend Penny Gray, a former police officer who's now comatose in the village's nursing home. Elizabeth used to have an unspecified job, possibly as a spy, that has left her with a large network of helpful sources. Joyce Meadowcroft is a former nurse who chronicles their deeds. Psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif and well-known political firebrand Ron Ritchie complete the group. They charm Police Constable Donna De Freitas, who, visiting to give a talk on safety at Coopers Chase, finds the residents sharp as tacks. Built with drug money on the grounds of a convent, Coopers Chase is a high-end development conceived by loathsome Ian Ventham and maintained by dangerous crook Tony Curran, who’s about to be fired and replaced with wary but willing Bogdan Jankowski. Ventham has big plans for the future—as soon as he’s removed the nuns' bodies from the cemetery. When Curran is murdered, DCI Chris Hudson gets the case, but Elizabeth uses her influence to get the ambitious De Freitas included, giving the Thursday Club a police source. What follows is a fascinating primer in detection as British TV personality Osman allows the members to use their diverse skills to solve a series of interconnected crimes.
A top-class cozy infused with dry wit and charming characters who draw you in and leave you wanting more, please.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-98-488096-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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