Best known as a collaborator on the Star Wars series (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2013, etc.), Bohnhoff combines well-paced...
Pairing with the National Park Service to catch dealers in stolen artifacts gets personal for a private investigator whose best friend has been taken down by a smuggling ring.
It’s lucky for Rose Delgado that her best friend, Gina Miyoko, is a private eye, because some sort of stalker is following Rose. The two set up a trap, and without too much effort, Rose and Gina discover that the tail is archaeology Ph.D.–turned-journalist Cruz Veras, who just wants a chance to talk with Rose about her undercover work chasing pot-hunters with the National Park Service. A little disappointed by the lack of excitement in the case, Gina, aka Tinkerbell or Tink (as no one appears to call her), digs into Cruz’s background to discover that he seems to be…exactly who he says he is. It’s another letdown for Gina, who wasn’t hoping for danger exactly, but maybe for something a little edgier. But Cruz isn’t the only one who’s been following Rose, and the other person in pursuit may have a dangerous connection to one of Rose’s recent cases, which focused on the thieves who resold antiquities from national parks and monuments. Rose and Gina track down Ted Bridges, one of the middlemen dealers, with the blessing and funding of the NPS, and are preparing to go into full investigative mode when tragedy strikes, killing Ted and putting Rose out of commission, maybe indefinitely. As much as Gina wants to stay local and care for her ailing friend, she won’t be satisfied until she has someone to blame. So she gamely takes Rose’s place in the undercover op, supported by Cruz’s cunning and archaeological know-how. Their quest to nab the big dogs of the operation lands them in over their heads because there’s an insider connection even the most savvy dealers won’t mess with.
Best known as a collaborator on the Star Wars series (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2013, etc.), Bohnhoff combines well-paced adventure and double-crossing in her mystery debut, although some of the distinctive character traits she incorporates are hit-or-miss.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-857-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be...
Box takes another break from his highly successful Joe Pickett series (Stone Cold, 2014, etc.) for a stand-alone about a police detective, a developmentally delayed boy, and a package everyone in North Dakota wants to grab.
Cassandra Dewell can’t leave Montana’s Lewis and Clark County fast enough for her new job as chief investigator for Jon Kirkbride, sheriff of Bakken County. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. But Bakken County has its own issues. For one thing, it’s cold—a whole lot colder than the coldest weather Cassie’s ever imagined. For another, the job she turns out to have been hired for—leading an investigation her new boss doesn’t feel he can entrust to his own force—makes her queasy. The biggest problem, though, is one she doesn’t know about until it slaps her in the face. A fatal car accident that was anything but accidental has jarred loose a stash of methamphetamines and cash that’s become the center of a battle between the Sons of Freedom, Bakken County’s traditional drug sellers, and MS-13, the Salvadorian upstarts who are muscling in on their territory. It’s a setup that leaves scant room for law enforcement officers or for Kyle Westergaard, the 12-year-old paperboy damaged since birth by fetal alcohol syndrome, who’s walked away from the wreck with a prize all too many people would kill for.
A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read.Pub Date: July 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-58321-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
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