Timely and tense; a worthy addition to a thriller series.
An undercover federal agent investigates a police officer’s brutal hit-and-run death: Could it have been a planned attack by a member of the force?
In this fifth installment of Barrows’ thriller series, agent David Ward of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is on a Colorado ski trip with his significant other, Rowan Parks. But then his boss asks him to slip into a Florida police force that might have one or more extremely bad apples. One of them could have been driving the pick-up truck that mowed down Deputy Jackson Garrett as he stood issuing a speeding ticket on a rural Panhandle road. Tallahassee Sheriff Eli Coe “thinks his office has been infiltrated by the Oath Keepers and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.” One or more officers engaged in such a group might have had it in for Garrett. Ward’s undercover name is Samuel Audie Hill. As he’s brought in as part of the SWAT unit, he alters his appearance to “a more SWAT-like look,” which includes a buzz cut and a shaved-off beard. (When he texts a photograph of his new style to Rowan, she responds, “I love you, anyway?”)Ward learns quickly that some of his fellow officers have strong feelings against Florida Gov. Thomas Fuller because he favors “reasonable restrictions on assault weapons,” promoted mask-wearing during the Covid-19 pandemic, and “stole” the primary election from fellow candidate and “true conservative” state Sen. Bryce Collins. Mirroring the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a coup may be in the offing. The timeliness of the story is a plus, though readers’ appreciation may vary according to their political views. The pacing is brisk; the writing is crisp (“The handshake was not a contest, but a greeting”) and the details are often amusing: “Ward was struck by the shark mounted above the bed.” Ward is a most likable protagonist and the other characters are realistic, but there are so many lieutenants, deputies, and detectives that readers may need a scorecard.
Timely and tense; a worthy addition to a thriller series.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 227
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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
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