Strong characterizations are the highlight of this mystery tale.
In Parent’s whodunit, a veteran detective investigates the life of an emotionally scarred man on trial.
Since Fall River, Massachusetts, resident Cassidy Branigan’s demise was ruled a suicide, her neighbor boyfriend, Jaden Sanders, has been in a fragile state. He’s on medication for depression, lives alone, and feels “like a loser who couldn’t stop losing.” An unseen neighbor has been harassing him with notes for slamming his door; the most recent one reads, “You’re the reason she’s gone.” Then he’s visited by three aggressive men early one morning, one of whom says, “There’s always consequences.” Sanders kills two of the intruders and stabs the third in what seems like a clear case of self-defense to DS Asante Royo, a 15-year veteran of the Fall River police. However, Heather Laughton, a prosecutor with political ambitions, is determined to bring Sanders to trial,and Royo starts to question whether “there’s more going on here than Sanders is letting on…or perhaps more than he knows.” He teams with energetic rookie Megan Costa; their pairing is “like Tigger and Eeyore,” but her enthusiasm makes her a promising mentee in a city where “too many cops were on the take, living large.” Over the course of this mystery, Parent deftly sketches his main characters, including the pitiable, tormented Sanders, with his tormented soul, and Royo, “a man of few means and fewer needs.” The author effectively shows the latter to be a good cop and a good man who understands that his job has “more shades of gray than a winter sky full of clouds.” He also shows how, for Laughton, a plea bargain in the Sanders case might be in the best interest of justice but “not in hers.” The solution to the mystery, however, is less compelling, and the fact that Sanders acts as if his girlfriend is still alive, eight months after her death, is initially confusing. However, the case has a swift denouement that’s freeze-frame ready if it should ever be adapted to the screen.
Strong characterizations are the highlight of this mystery tale.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.
Hired to find the father of celebrity “muffin girl” Traci Beller 10 years after his disappearance, PI Elvis Cole uncovers a nefarious plot that puts his life and those he contacts at risk.
The sweetly likable Traci, now 23, has amassed a huge following with her website, The Baker Next Door, and on social media. Against the advice and self-interest of the people who over-manage her career, she decides to find out what happened to her father. Cole quickly determines that he was last seen at the SurfMutt hamburger stand, where he gave a ride to Anya Given, a troubled 15-year-old whose mother, Sadie, was late in picking her up from the skate park across the street. With the reluctant help of a scattered young woman who used to work at the burger joint, Cole tracks down Anya and Sadie, who is eventually revealed to have a criminal past. For his efforts, he’s jumped by a small gang of men who send him to the hospital with the worst beating of his life. (Asked by a nurse what his name is, the best he can guess is “Los Angeles.”) Still in recovery, Cole and Joe Pike, his ex-Marine partner, trace his attackers to Sadie, with unexpected results. As ever, Crais draws the reader in via his protagonist’s casual, dryly humorous manner and the book’s relaxed ties to classic noir. Slowly but surely, the plot gains intensity and deadly purpose. Just when you think the missing persons case is solved, Crais ratchets things up with a devastating follow-through. This is the L.A. novelist’s 20th Cole mystery, following such efforts as The Watchman (2007) and Racing the Light (2022). It may be his most powerful.
A potent and surprising novel by the ever-reliable Crais.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780525535768
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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