Plenty of Roaring ’20s ambience and enough red herrings to keep things mysterious.
A talented investigator and a medium who occasionally hits the mark are involved in yet another murder case.
It's 1924, and life hasn’t been easy for Maddie Pastore. Fleeing an abusive family, she met and married Tommy Pastore, whose job driving a truck for the Chicago mob got him killed, leaving her and baby Tommy penniless. A chance meeting with the mother of a school friend who makes a living as medium Madame Carlotta Romany gives Maddie a new lease on life. When she runs into singer Sophie Dale, she recognizes her as the sister she hasn’t seen for many years. A few days later, Sophie’s husband, Sebastian Dale, calls to tell Maddie that Sophie’s been arrested for murder. Maddie’s friendship with Det. O’Rourke gets her in to see Sophie, who claims that during a big party where she was singing for wealthy Nick Bardo, she felt unwell and passed out in a bedroom, where she was later found holding a bloody candlestick with Bardo’s body on the floor. Sophie remembers nothing, and although Maddie is sure she’s innocent, she knows it won’t be easy to prove it. Maddie’s prodigious skills at digging up facts encourage her to investigate Bardo’s feuding family and his ties to the mob. She gets a hand from well-known police detective Alice Clement, who has a special interest in helping women. But Maddie has to keep Alice from learning that she works for a medium and fend off rival mobs’ efforts to get her to set up Al Capone for a hit. Walking a dangerous path, she still manages to uncover the truth.
Plenty of Roaring ’20s ambience and enough red herrings to keep things mysterious.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-44830-684-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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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