Mystery fans, history buffs and romance aficionados alike will devour this fast-paced adventure, which is packed with...
An addictively readable mystery steeped in the history of 18th-century England.
In 1716, an Anglican, a Quaker and a young Catholic get into a carriage. That’s not the start of a bad joke but the opening of this very fine historical novel. There’s someone else in the coach as well: Hester Kean, a lady-in-waiting who’s headed to York to assist her cousin as she prepares to join the royal court. Making the best of the long journey, Kean befriends a young traveler who introduces himself as Charles Fenwick; he’s returning from France to his father’s estate. Yet when this sundry band arrives in York and finds Charles’ father murdered, Kean is quickly drawn into the mystery—and religious foment—surrounding his death. She won’t have to investigate this crime alone, however; she’s quickly joined by her longtime fellow sleuth (and love interest) the Viscount St. Mars, better known to his fans as “Blue Satan.” This is the fifth book in a series featuring these ingeniously matched detectives, and although readers will surely want to go back and read the first four, they needn’t: This book is so fully conceived and carefully plotted that it stands on its own. Furthermore, it’s historical fiction of the best kind; the period detail isn’t window dressing—it’s intricately woven into the very fabric of the novel. Readers will sense that for every historical detail Wynn mentions, she leaves another five unsaid. Much of this quality derives from the fact that the author has herself traveled in the regions she writes about—and dug through their libraries. Last and best, Wynn’s prose is elegant and focused; when she describes her hero Blue Satan as one who weighs every word, she could just as well be writing about herself. This is her 15th novel, and from its first lines, readers will feel safe in the hands of a seasoned author who’s honed her skills with decades of work.
Mystery fans, history buffs and romance aficionados alike will devour this fast-paced adventure, which is packed with goodies for everyone.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1935421078
Page Count: 379
Publisher: Pemberley Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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