A measured crime story that deftly forefronts its indelible characters.
In this procedural, Baltimore detectives help distill an alcoholic’s hazy recollection in order to unmask a serial murderer.
Sgt. William Mankiller and his rookie partner, Det. Maria Esperanza Ruiz, work a frustrating case involving missing women. The detectives have nothing to go on; the victims, who are all blond and have similar body types, vanished without a trace. A body washes up in the harbor—a woman who looks like the ones missing—and Mankiller and Ruiz think that a murderer, who’s thus far covered their tracks, has finally made a blunder. The good news? There’s a potential witness. The bad news, however, is that it’s Kyle Owen “KO” Bannon, a former prizefighter-turned-drunk who claims he saw a dragon kill a woman. The detectives are convinced the mythical creature from KO’s memory will ultimately reveal a critical detail about the perpetrator. While KO fights to stay sober, a psychologist makes a wild suggestion—“recreate” what KO witnessed by sending him right back to the bottle. There’s surprisingly little tension in Harper and Galehouse’s novel. Although readers get a glimpse of a frighteningly careful murderer, this villain spends most of their time avoiding detection. The story focuses on the lively cast, from the seasoned veteran cop and the rookie bonding over hot cocoa to the struggling alcoholic hoping to repair the severed relationship with his daughter. Likewise, a snowy Baltimore winter generates a memorable setting and sparks colorful passages: “The cold sank its claws into everything and kept its grip, even as the days inched toward February.” Despite the detectives’ ongoing investigation, the alleged dragon is the grandest mystery, and the most compelling dilemma is the ethical question of persuading KO to drink again. Still, it all builds to a riveting final act and a worthy payoff.
A measured crime story that deftly forefronts its indelible characters.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Papillon du Père Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2023
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
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
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