A heinous crime gets viewed through several lenses in this scintillating whodunit.
A mystery examines the lasting impact of a cold case on one family.
Sawyer’s novel starts with an obituary for a key character: Abigail Melinda Joss, who died in Toronto on Feb. 1, 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Abigail gained notoriety for being acquitted of the murder of her husband, Montgomery, in 2000. The obit ties together the narratives told from the perspectives of three people affected by Monty’s killing: his daughter, Katelynn; his mistress, Rosalind Wallen; and his son, Robitaille. As the only child of Abigail’s who can be located, Katelynn is called back from her home in France to write the obit for her estranged mother. She is supervised by her aunts Agnes and Yolande, Abigail’s sisters, who are extremely worried about upholding the reputation of the “prominent Raddefords of Des Moines, Iowa.” It takes four months of arguments among Katelynn and her aunts to finish the obit. The piece is seen by Rosalind, Monty’s true love. Young Monty and Roz had planned to be wed until Abigail tricked him into proposing. Roz is also the only living person who knows the truth about Monty’s murder. Rob, who changed his name after leaving home, becomes a homicide detective and is handed the cold case of Monty’s murder by his police chief. Rob searches for clues to the killer’s identity. In this book, Sawyer effectively reveals how a violent act can affect many people. The author shows how Abigail’s history of brutality was covered up by her relatives, who were more concerned with the family’s prestige. As a result, Abigail was viewed as eccentric, not dangerous, despite her past actions. Other characters appear amiable but they once got battered by Abigail’s wake. Sawyer’s decision to tell the story from three distinct viewpoints is quite productive. Each narrator has pieces of the puzzle, which gets assembled over the course of the well-crafted tale to illustrate how destructive the self-absorbed Abigail was. The story, which traces her actions over decades, uncovers how her narcissism helped shape the decisions made by other characters. She drives the events in this intriguing work.
A heinous crime gets viewed through several lenses in this scintillating whodunit.Pub Date: June 19, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-21802-156-6
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Information Plus
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
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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