Like its characters, this mystery is engaging, compelling, and rough around the edges.
Members of an Oklahoma family trying to recover from tragedy reel from the news that the incarcerated relative who terrorized them is being released from prison.
In this third installment of Lipinski’s mystery series, Zane Clearwater, six weeks into police training, learns that his half brother, Clyde Doom, will get out of prison to await a new trial. Clyde had been convicted of kidnapping Zane’s sister, Lettie, now 16 years old and pregnant. Clyde’s conviction was overturned on a technicality. Oklahoma’s 2020 McGirt ruling will allow Clyde to be out on bail before a new trial because, like Zane, he is part Cherokee, and the crime occurred within Native American borders when he was a juvenile. Zane lives in a mobile home with his grandmother Verda, Lettie, and the teen’s boyfriend, Angel. After learning of Clyde’s upcoming release, Lettie gets spooked when she receives a baby rattle from an anonymous sender, and the police academy suspends Zane because he’s accused of selling meth. Someone seems to be working with still-incarcerated Clyde to upset the family members and probably hurt them in retribution for past events. To protect his family, Zane adopts a big guard dog and engages in what Angel calls “hillbilly security”: placing junkyard metal around the trailer’s perimeter that will “make it noisy for an intruder to come near.” Zane’s girlfriend, Tiffany, assists in setting up a video and lighting security system. Along with these measures, Zane fights feelings of violence, which plagued him in the past, as they continue to ramp up. In this captivating tale, descriptions are often vivid and precise, such as that of a woman with spidery clots of mascara-laden eyelashes and a man whose “mouth pinched like he was sucking food out of his teeth.” But they can be clunky, too: “Hearing his current girlfriend’s name brought her face and smile into his mind.” Reading this series in order would be preferable, as incidents from the players’ brutal pasts are jarring to read in summarized sentences. Still, this gripping installment features a cast of intriguing characters and a memorable, complex hero. In addition, the tale is timely, with a reference to Covid-19 and pro and con stances on policing.
Like its characters, this mystery is engaging, compelling, and rough around the edges.Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Majestic Content Los Angeles
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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