A relatable hero and genuine suspense make up for the less-than-credible plot points.
Troubles multiply for a bar owner stalked by a serial killer in this mystery.
Spirited New York City bar owner Jude Dillane returns in this third outing of Stoler’s Murder on the Rocksseries. Also back: sadistic murderer Art Bevins, the New Year’s Eve Serial Killer, still at large after escaping capture in Last Call(2020)and more determined than ever to add Jude to his victim list. As if that’s not enough, Jude may lose her beloved bar, The Corner Lounge, because her partner and chef, Pete Angel, can’t take any more mayhem, and one of her friends appears to be keeping criminal company. In addition, there’s something suspicious about glamorous Dolores Castel, now living in the killer’s former apartment in Jude’s building and making a play for the protagonist’s close friend Sully, the complex’s owner. At least Jude’s boyfriend, Eric Ramirez, has returned after their breakup, occasioned by her inability to stay out of danger and leave investigating to the authorities. (Fans of the series likely identified with Eric’s frustration; Jude’s concern that her actions put others in peril and upended personal relationships seemed shallow at best.) The author has somewhat softened that dynamic in this installment, though Jude dismisses the possible consequences if the killer learns of her visit to a key figure in the case, an older stage director. She also eludes one of her FBI bodyguards to do some independent sleuthing, fully aware that the agent could lose his job if her action is discovered. But with her business, her friends’ well-being, and her life on the line, Jude’s determination to find her own answers—despite a few of her huffy but significant “I’ll do it myself” lapses—is balanced by a more realistic, if grudging, awareness that a person who is being stalked by a sadistic killer may very well need a couple of FBI agents on hand as protection. She finally decides that keeping law enforcement in the loop is a good idea. Stoler adds a high level of suspense by periodically shifting from Jude’s first-person narration to Dolores’ third-person point of view, although the twist within a twist involving this femme fatale is quite a stretch.
A relatable hero and genuine suspense make up for the less-than-credible plot points.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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