A charismatic private eye electrifies this absorbing murder mystery.
In Dabney’s 1980s-set thriller, a Philadelphia PI’s investigation lands him in the dangerous company of mobsters.
As a private detective, David Blaise keeps his clients’ information confidential. His real-estate owner and developer brother-in-law, Stuart Thomas, is no exception. He asks David to look into a recent homicide—the fatal shooting of a man Stuart claims he doesn’t know. But he definitely knows where the murder happened, as it’s one of his company’s properties. Perhaps more concerning are the mobsters with an unexplained interest in the murder victim. As an organized crime war rages on in Philadelphia, mobsters on opposing sides continually turn up with ties to the PI’s murder investigation. All the while, David falls behind on his office rent and strives to be a better man for his girlfriend, Clara. Dabney’s sophomore series installment moves at a steady clip; David squeezes other jobs into his busy schedule (one for an old high-school friend and another for his skeevy landlord). The story hits many of the beats of a traditional (albeit enthralling) detective story, from deceitful clients to David getting roughed up. It’s the nuanced character of David himself who truly elevates this tale: He has worked in Naval intelligence and as a transit cop and, as a Black man, he isn’t immune to racist attitudes and treatment. Despite threats and financial and relationship troubles, he’s a consummate professional and perpetually unruffled (“I didn’t have many cards but I decided to play the strongest one, though it was still weak. Besides, if they intended to arrest me, we wouldn’t be sitting in a police car having a chinwag. I’d be in handcuffs and headed to the Roundhouse”). Even if readers guess the story’s outcome, it’s a treat to watch how skillfully and efficiently David closes his cases.
A charismatic private eye electrifies this absorbing murder mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781942166863
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Per Bastet Publications
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 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
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