If you have time for only one mystery, one Western, and one SF this year, this will ding all three targets.
Hold onto your hats. A fatal but otherwise routine accident in rural California turns out to be not exactly either one.
Fired from the LAPD over an affair with a junior officer, Beth McDade has to settle for working as a detective for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office in Barstow. The town has its share of burglaries and such, but Beth’s latest case is something else entirely. A ghostly figure has appeared screaming out of thin air and run into the path of a mobile home outside Peggy Sue’s in Yermo one stormy night. The dead man has no identifying papers, and the contents of his pockets all date from the 1880s. The weirdness is only intensified by the discovery of a skeleton that seems to be that of missing chef and food writer Owen Slader, even though pregnant coroner Amanda Selby identifies it as a century old despite its Tommy Bahama shirt and state-of-the-art dental and orthopedic implants. So what’s going on here? Beth’s increasingly bewildered inquiries lead her to focus on the history of the Calico silver mine, which flourished more than a century ago, and the possibility that the best place to get answers may be the nearby Marine Corps Logistics Base, whose security chief, Bill Knox, is another of Beth’s ex-flings. The Marines, being Marines, aren’t eager to enlighten her, and she’s left searching for leads while the story follows Owen in the days before his remains are discovered, into worlds that will seriously challenge readers’ suspension of disbelief even as they expand the boundaries of the police procedural in rip-roaring ways.
If you have time for only one mystery, one Western, and one SF this year, this will ding all three targets.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781448310135
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
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
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