A playful murder tale that should please longtime fans of this series and seduce new ones.
This fifth installment of a series finds a detective tangled in the dangerous life of a private investigator.
Denny Alscher is a scientist working at Horizon Solar. He’s discovered a way to “weaponize the generation of liquid solar fuel” and hopes to sell the formulas. He meets his old friends Mitch Calantus and Larry Neaman at an abandoned school. When he realizes they plan to shoot him, Denny impales Mitch with a wooden picket. After escaping, Denny decides to hire a Portland, Oregon, area private eye to make it seem like he killed Mitch in self-defense. Enter 21-year-old Kathryn “Katt” Nugle, a feisty sleuth with a pink streak in her hair and a pet ferret, Gila. She’s also friends with the McAllister clan, six siblings committed to police and investigative work. Detective Matt McAllister has been determined to protect Katt since her kidnapping by the Biobotics company. Though 10 years separate the two, they share a fiery sexual tension that’s impossible to ignore. When Katt’s latest employer, Denny, leaves his bloodied jacket at their meeting—only to eventually fire her—she and Matt try to puzzle out the situation. Their struggle deepens as Denny’s fiancee, Molly, is found dead. Molly is the sister of Carina Frendal, an old flame of Matt’s who’s just re-entered his life. In this volume, Garrett (Carbon Replacements, 2018, etc.) continues to expand the McAllisters’ steamy and perilous world. While romance frequently overtakes the narrative’s thriller aspects, readers should appreciate the realism of lines like “Whenever undertaking assignments associated with increased risk,” Katt “smudged her license plate with mud.” The age-gap dynamic is explored well, as Matt resists Katt’s advances as long as possible, sure that “you should have a boy who sweeps you off your feet but can...meet you halfway, not one who...leaves you praying you can maintain your identity.” The author writes natural, often excellent dialogue, though she tends to overexamine her characters’ thoughts and feelings in the surrounding exposition. Nevertheless, Katt and Matt create a bond that readers should want to see fleshed out further.
A playful murder tale that should please longtime fans of this series and seduce new ones.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79037-377-2
Page Count: 281
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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