A diverting mixture of murder mystery, character study, and social comedy from the enduringly popular British author of TV's Rumpole of the Bailey and also such novels as Dunster (1993) and Paradise Postponed (1986). Felix Morsom, a genteel and critically respected novelist known as ``the Chekhov of Coldsands'' (and, just possibly, suggested by the real-life figure of William Trevor?), finds his quiet life radically overturned when during a book signing he's confronted by a woman who declares him the father of her 11-year- old son. When Felix and a friend of the putative mother are overheard exchanging threats, and the latter is soon thereafter found bludgeoned to death (or so it seems), Felix goes into hiding among a memorably seedy array of homeless vagrants, is later captured and brought to trial—and changed in ways he couldn't possibly have foreseen when the mystery is at last solved and the verdict delivered. Mortimer populates this breezy and ever-so- slightly superficial story with a number of crucially involved and vividly sketched supporting characters, including Felix's lissome publicist Brenda Bodkin, the trashy lady novelist Sandra Tantamount, whose heavy-breathing bestsellers keep Felix's publisher's (Llama Books) afloat, a married bisexual publisher's rep, a genial rent boy who goes by the street name ``Yorkie Bar,'' and Felix's solicitor (not to mention Yorkie's), the not altogether trustworthy Septimus Roache. The novel is further graced by several wonderfully convincing scenes set in London's dÇclassÇ ``underworld,'' and by some delicious mockery of the byzantine intrigue that dominates the literary life (Llama Books, for example, is thrilled at the prospect of marketing one of its authors as ``a suspected murderer begging in the street''). Mortimer ties up all these loose ends expertly, and ends on a surprisingly effective sentimental note. Top-drawer escapist fare, from one of the most dependable entertainers in the business.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-86079-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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