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THE SHADOW MURDERS

Proof that there are indeed tsunamis in Denmark.

Department Q, the cold case division of the Copenhagen Police, races to prevent the latest in a series of vigilante killings of seriously bad people.

Have you ever watched your fellow citizens casually flout laws designed for the common good and wished you could take revenge? Someone’s assembled a crack team of female avengers whose mission is to execute “due diligence” on your behalf. Reading about the recent suicide of Maja Petersen reminds Chief of Homicide Marcus Jacobsen of the 1988 explosion that leveled Ove Wilder’s Auto, a repair shop that routinely cheated its unwitting clients, and killed Maja’s son, Max—not to mention the owner and three employees who were discovered inside. The body count may seem high, but it’s only the beginning, for news that a sharp-eyed technician spotted a pile of table salt outside the shop’s entrance gate all those years ago moves Chief Inspector Carl Mørck to ask Rose Knudsen to search the records for other salt-seasoned killings no one has thought to link together, and his team ultimately unearths a total of 16 candidates, one every other year, each of them perpetrated on the birthday of a notorious dictator. As the anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birth looms on Dec. 26, the members of Department Q struggle to identify not only potential suspects, but potential victims, unaware that exploitative reality TV show producer Maurits van Bierbek has already been kidnapped and hidden in a secret lair in preparation for the big day. Just to make matters more interesting, newly discovered evidence suddenly implicates Carl in a 15-year-old drug case, and Jacobsen himself leads the charge for his arrest.

Proof that there are indeed tsunamis in Denmark.

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-5247-4258-4

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022

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TO DIE FOR

Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.

The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.

Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead. 

Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024

ISBN: 9781538757901

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024

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THE GREY WOLF

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.

At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024

ISBN: 9781250328137

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024

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