Edith Wharton’s 1926 “A Bottle of Perrier” sets a high bar for everything that precedes it. Good thing it comes last.
Variety is the keynote for these 21 recent reprints and one century-old bonus story.
Both editor Towles and series editor Otto Penzler emphasize the central importance of dead bodies in mystery fiction, ignoring the fact that two of the stories they’ve chosen end with the entire cast still alive. Aaron Philip Clark, Tom Larsen, Michael Mallory, and Ashley Lister choose characters or settings—an undocumented mother helpless to get justice for her son’s death, a corrupt Ecuadorian cop, a house cat fitted with a camera that records a murder in progress, a prostitute who shot the trafficker/witness she was hired to entertain—that provide welcome originality, and Lou Manfredo, Annie Reed, Anna Round, and Jessi Lewis showcase elegiac moments that are variously open-ended, the inconclusiveness of the last two especially effective. Most of the remaining stories tick the boxes for established but diverse subgenres. Victor Kreuiter and Joseph S. Walker follow hit men who come out of retirement for one last score. Joslyn Chase’s reopening of a cold case is an expertly compressed procedural. Andrew Child’s latest Jack Reacher adventure is interesting mainly for its uncertainty about which minor details will provide springboards for action. Jeffery Deaver’s cat-and-mouse game between a U.S. marshal and an explosively violent woman is notable for one of Deaver’s trademark surprises halfway through. Derrick Belanger pens a deft Sherlock-ian pastiche; Kerry Hammond introduces a darkly witty twist to her homage to Miss Marple; Sean McCluskey salutes the more hard-boiled criminals Parker and Keller in his tale of a no-holds-barred attorney seeking his wealthy client’s kidnapped daughter. The best of these traditional stories is Brendan DuBois’ predictable but perfectly turned account of a wealthy fugitive who’s blackmailed by his gardener.
Edith Wharton’s 1926 “A Bottle of Perrier” sets a high bar for everything that precedes it. Good thing it comes last.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781613164488
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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