A gritty, assured mystery debut, right up to its satisfying final notes.
A disheartened private eye does a favor that puts him on wrong side of a dangerous criminal organization in Vaughn’s crime novel.
In 2017 middle-aged Los Angeles private investigator Ellis Dunaway hasn’t had a decent case in ages. His secretary, Reshma, is likely to quit soon, and his once-promising career as a TV writer is so far in the past, it feels like it never happened. He can’t help but keep tabs on Kent Moran, a writer friend who seems to accrue accolades by the day, while Ellis just accrues debt and regret. When a nightclub-owning acquaintance, Terry Montero, asks him for a favor, Ellis quickly agrees; aside from snorting cocaine and listening to pop songs on the radio of an old Porsche his dead father left him, he doesn’t have very much to do. Terry wants Ellis to check on a rental property where he allowed a colleague, Douglas Stefanidis, to crash. Terry hasn’t heard from the guy in weeks and would like to resume renting out the house if it’s empty. The search for Stefanidis becomes a wide-ranging investigation involving porn stars and local criminals who may be involved with the Black Fist—a cartel involved in money laundering, drug trafficking, and more. Vaughn’s jaded protagonist has just enough ruefulness and ambition to make this LA noir click. The pacing is brisk, and the characters are mostly entertainingly seedy. However, when Ellis shows a spark of humanity—he truly cares about his secretary’s son, for instance—the writing truly shines. Vaughn efficiently renders the California settings, although listing every song playing on the radio is almost comically overdone: “ ‘Breakout’ by Swing Out Sister. After that, ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ by Bryan Adams came on. The song was released on two albums simultaneously in 1991….” Some chapters start with quotes from Ellis’ father, a bestselling author and private investigator. Like other aspects of the story, the father’s words ring true and evoke an era of reminiscent of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books.
A gritty, assured mystery debut, right up to its satisfying final notes.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2023
ISBN: 979-8986531908
Page Count: 290
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.
A successful Vermont podcaster who’s elicited confessions from dozens of criminals finds herself on the other side of the table, in the hottest of hot seats, over her own troubled past.
Poe Webb was only 13 when she saw her mother, Margaret McMillian, get stabbed to death by the man she’d picked up for a quickie. Poe had vowed revenge, but how could a kid find and avenge herself on a stranger who’d vanished as quickly as he appeared? In the long years since then, Poe’s made a name for herself as a top true-crime podcaster who routinely invites her guests to tell her audience exactly what they did. Now, she’s being pressed, and pressed hard, by Ian Hindley, whose fake name echoes those of England’s Moors Murderers, to join him in a livestream her fans will find riveting because, as Hindley tells her, he’s actually Leopold Hutchins, the pickup who stabbed her mother 14 times when she failed to use her safe word. Skeptical? Hindley knows endless details about the killing that were never released by the police. If Poe won’t do the broadcast, Hindley threatens to harm everyone she loves: her father; her producer and lover, Kip Nguyen; and her black Lab, Bailey. And there’s one more complication that makes the pressure on Poe even more unbearable. Seven years ago, against all odds, she succeeded in tracking Leopold Hutchins from Burlington to New York and killing him herself. In fact, it’s that murder that Hindley most wants her to talk about. Which bully is more fearsome, the man who’s threatening her or the man she killed?
Better set aside several uninterrupted hours for this toxic rocket. You’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781464226229
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
An accomplished but emotionally undercooked courtroom drama by the author who made that genre popular.
Having been falsely convicted of murder himself years ago, prosecutor Rusty Sabich defies common wisdom in defending his romantic partner’s adopted son against the same accusation.
Now 76, Rusty has retired to the (fictitious) Skageon Region in the upper Midwest, far removed from Kindle County, Turow’s Chicago stand-in, where he was a star attorney and judge. Aaron Housley, a Black man raised in a bleached rural environment, has had his troubles, including serving four months for holding drugs purchased by Mae Potter, his erratic, on-and-off girlfriend. Now, after suddenly disappearing to parts unknown with her, he returns alone. When days go by without Mae’s reappearance, it is widely assumed that Aaron harmed her. Why else would he be in possession of her phone? Following the discovery of Mae’s strangled body and incriminating evidence that points to Aaron, Rusty steps in. Opposed in court by the uncontrollable, gloriously named prosecutor Hiram Jackdorp, he fears he’s in a lose-lose situation. If he fails to get Aaron off, which is highly possible, the boy’s mother, Bea, will never forgive him. If Rusty wins the case, the quietly detached Bea—who, like half the town, has secrets—will have trouble living with the unsparing methods Rusty uses to free Aaron. In attempting to match, or at least approach, the brilliance of his groundbreaking masterpiece Presumed Innocent (1987), Turow has his own odds to overcome. No minor achievement like a previous follow-up, Innocent (2010), the new novel is a powerful display of straightforward narrative, stuffed with compelling descriptions of people, places, and the legal process. No one stages courtroom scenes better than this celebrated Chicago attorney. But the book, whose overly long scenes add up to more than 500 pages, mostly lacks the gripping intensity and high moral drama to keep those pages turning. It’s an absorbing and entertaining read, but Turow’s fans have come to expect more than that.
An accomplished but emotionally undercooked courtroom drama by the author who made that genre popular.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538706367
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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