The laudable protagonist once again guides readers through a robust detective story.
Lansing’s latest thriller (The Devil’s Necktie, 2015, etc.), the third outing for Jack Bertolino, finds the private investigator searching for a killer whose assassination of a known criminal results in a child’s accidental death.
Toby Dirk’s decision to take out drug dealer Tomas Vegas sniper-style isn’t what puts Jack on the case. It’s the stray bullet that kills 6-year-old Maria Sanchez. Former NYPD detective Jack is already in Los Angeles, his prior tussle with kidnappers and sex traffickers providing the basis for the currently in-production film Done Deal. He’s technical adviser to the movie’s star, Susan Blake, but also acting as bodyguard; a stalker followed the actress from New York. Toby, meanwhile, comes from a family of lawbreakers, with him and older brothers Terrence and Sean running a store to launder dirty money. They dabble in various illicit deeds, including stealing drugs and cash from other dealers. But Jack’s suspicion that the Vegas hit was personal may be spot-on: Toby doesn’t tell his brothers that he was the shooter. When Toby executes a second solo murder, Jack may find a way to link the deaths to the Dirk brothers. The other investigation’s complicated enough, with Jack fairly certain Susan is lying about not knowing the stalker’s identity. But if he gets any closer to unraveling the Dirks’ criminal enterprise, Jack could be the next victim. The protagonist’s working two separate cases ultimately proves beneficial to the story. Lansing takes them in vastly different directions, one built on mystery (details on the stalker are largely unknown), the other on suspense (readers are fully aware of how dangerous the Dirks are). There’s likewise perspective from the baddies, who occasionally commit murders together, while Jack and Susan’s physical relationship, coupled with his ex-wife, Jeannine, suddenly showing up at his door, is a delightful soapy turn. Stellar supporting characters range from legal-advising friend/lawyer Tommy Aronsohn to computer genius Cruz Feinberg, who uses his hacking skills to great effect. And though the private eye’s rugged looks attract the ladies, his frankness is most appealing: “I’ll take [someone] down because he’s a scumbag,” he says. “But I won’t kill him. Because I’m not.”
The laudable protagonist once again guides readers through a robust detective story.Pub Date: May 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-4756-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
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.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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