A top-notch cast and a sublimely rendered historical setting elevate this supernatural mystery.
In Genard’s debut thriller, a psychic medical examiner in 19th-century London dives into cases of missing youths and murder.
Dr. William Scarlet puts his expertise to work as an assistant chief surgeon for Scotland Yard. Only a select few know of another of his skills—he experiences psychometric visions that he triggers by touching people or an object they’ve handled. He and his friend Django Pierce-Jones, a medium of Romani descent, belong to the newly formed Society for Supernatural and Psychic Research. They catch their very first case after a string of children’s disappearances stumps the authorities. They’ve only just begun to investigate (soliciting spiritual assistance via a seance) when another case falls into the Society’s collective laps: Elizabeth Wilson and her budding-artist fiance, Ambrose Reed, have been made to suffer, both in their relationship and in their physical bodies, and the potential culprit is none other than Reed’s late first wife. (“Do you think it’s possible, Julius, for someone to exert an influence from beyond the grave?”) Genard effectively grounds this mystery in its real-life environment, name-checking such familiar locations as Notting Hill and Hyde Park. His narrative delivers indelible set pieces, from Scarlet’s bizarre, unsettling dream to a particularly chilling autopsy. This book, intended as a series opener, focuses on Scarlet and Django; most of the other Society members share a single scene. The two friends easily carry the story as they blend their paranormal abilities with more traditional sleuthing, including the 19th-century version of a background check. While their novel methods of investigation net relatively few clues and culminate in a revelation that won’t surprise many readers, that certainly doesn’t dampen the polished characterizations of the romantically conflicted Reed, the unorthodox gumshoes, and one character who grows progressively creepier as the story continues.
A top-notch cast and a sublimely rendered historical setting elevate this supernatural mystery. (dedication; dramatis personae; author’s note; sequel preview; about the author)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781736555644
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Cedar & Maitland Press
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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