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A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH

Name: A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH
Author: Jen. J. Danna
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2809-7

by Jen. J. Danna with Ann Vanderlaan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2014

A tricky mystery rich in intriguing suspects and forensic detail.

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Witches are suspected of murder in modern-day Salem, Mass.

State Trooper Leigh Abbott and forensic anthropologist Matt Lowell have barely recovered from the horrors of their first case together (Dead Without a Stone to Tell It, 2013) when they’re called on to work an arson-cum-murder. Leigh, one of the few women in a man’s world, infuriates a colleague when she lands a case involving badly burned remains in an antiques shop thanks to Matt’s refusal to work with anyone else. They discover that wealthy Moira Simpson was stabbed with an athame, a ceremonial witches’ knife, and her tiny dog, beaten to death before the fire was set. Moira had once been involved in a coven, and the knife was part of a set custom-made for her. Her son Flynn suffers from fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, in which any injury, even as small as an injection site, turns to bone. Moira, who never had to work, spent her life caring for her son and taking up a succession of hobbies. An alarmist newspaper story suggests that witches are responsible for the murder, and the next murder/arson raises the stakes when a firefighter dies. The victim, Moira’s former priest, was killed with her boline, a work knife that was part of the missing set. Matt, who’s romantically involved with Leigh, must help her cope with a series of anonymous letters hinting that her father, killed in the line of duty, was a crooked cop. Given that there’s still one item left in Moira’s ceremonial set, who’s the next target?

A tricky mystery rich in intriguing suspects and forensic detail.

Pub Date: April 18, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4328-2809-7

Page Count: 308

Publisher: Five Star/Gale Cengage

Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014

Categories:

MYSTERY & DETECTIVE

- BOOK REVIEW
TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER
by Jen. J. Danna with Ann Vanderlaan

- BOOK REVIEW
DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT
by Jen. J. Danna with Ann Vanderlaan

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A CONSPIRACY OF BONES

by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.

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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

Categories:

- BOOK REVIEW
FIRE AND BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
COLD, COLD BONES
by Kathy Reichs

- BOOK REVIEW
THE BONE CODE
by Kathy Reichs

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BADLANDS

by C.J. Box ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 28, 2015

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...

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Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.

Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.