A fun escapist beach read best enjoyed with a frosty piña colada.
Murder and mayhem await an amateur sleuth aboard a luxurious Mediterranean cruise ship in Stoler’s mystery novel.
Jude Dillane is recovering from her last adventure, in which she took the life of a serial killer. The proprietor of The Corner Lounge, a bar and grill on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jude is preparing for the weekend crowd when her boyfriend, accountant Eric Ramirez, walks in with a surprise offering. His wealthy client Milt Rogovich has gifted them a spectacular 10-day vacation on the Wanderlust Cruise Line’s newest elite small-ship wonder, the Allure. Off to London they go to begin a luxury vacation. To her surprise and delight, Jude spots Monica Delmar, her friend from the days when they both attended Cornell University’s hotel school; Monica is now the Allure’s director of passenger events. She shows Jude and Eric to their sumptuous cabin, complete with a separate sitting room and an invitation to join her at the captain’s table for the cruise’s first-night dinner. But an ominous cloud hangs over this seagoing paradise: In the middle of the night, Monica tearfully appears at the couple’s cabin door, reporting that she has just discovered the twisted, lifeless body of the assistant purser, Jamie McFarland, on the floor of a passageway. And so, the game’s afoot in this fourth volume of the author’s Murder on the Rocks mystery series. Jude is a jaunty, irrepressible narrator; in between snooping and ferreting out clues, she shares detailed descriptions of the Allure’s lavish decor and tempting gourmet meals and highlights of her tour of Barcelona, their first port of call. Despite the ingratiatingly upbeat tone, buoyed by light banter, Stoler builds tension with increasing danger, a plethora of likely suspects, and direct threats to Jude’s life. There’s a very creepy scene follows an unaccompanied Jude through the ancient underground tunnels of Rome’s Colosseum, “their stone walls stained and reeking of dampness,” and although there is no big concluding shocker, there are some clever and surprising twists.
A fun escapist beach read best enjoyed with a frosty piña colada.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781685122607
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Level Best Books
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.
A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.
At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.
One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9781250328137
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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