A twisty and highly readable thriller that’s occasionally hampered by cop-fiction clichés.
An unconventional detective hunts for a killer among the churches of New Orleans in Zappa’s latest police procedural.
Detective Lt. Jo Crowder and Detective Sgt. Sid Steele catch a murder case in the middle of Easter Weekwhen the body of young girl is found dumped on the steps of St. Stephan’s Cathedral, one of the oldest and most venerated churches for the 3.5 million Catholics who call the Big Easy home. The head of the city’s Violent Crime and Homicide Division, Frank O’Malley, reflects glumly on the fact that his town is statistically “the fourth most dangerous city in which to live and visit,” but he knows that 36-year-old Crowder will get results. She not only has degrees in criminal justice and forensic science; she’s also an expert marksman, has black belts in judo and karate, and has the highest case-closure rate in the department by far. In addition, she’s completely consumed by her job: “she ate it, drank it, and lived it day and night. It made her irrepressible, confident and bold.” She and Steele, her partner of three years, begin sifting clues and sorting suspects, but the process is unexpectedly complicated by an unstable copycat who is all too eager to confess to the crime; they must also deal with the machinations of scheming District Attorney Max Hellman, “an arrogant, self-centered, showboat opportunist” who manages to thwart their work at every turn. Police finally apprehend a solid-looking suspect named Miguel Diaz, but Crowder’s instincts are telling her that they have the wrong man.
Zappa assembles relatively standard crime-thriller elements in a satisfying manner that will appeal to fans of Ed McBain or Jeffery Deaver’s sturdy procedurals. Crowder is clearly the star of the show here; indeed, the author doesn’t bother to restrain his own admiration for his hero. She can be short-tempered and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, but she’s otherwise essentially perfect, resembling the older-and-wiser version of FBI agent Clarice Starling in Thomas Harris’ 1999 thriller sequel, Hannibal. Religious elements play a key role in the narrative, as Crowder’s suspicions quickly fall on a respected churchman of New Orleans—an explosive development that could easily get her cashiered if it misfires; the fact that she’s an agnostic working a religiously charged case makes the situation even more delicate. Zappa beautifully captures these multifaceted tensions in a way that keeps the story moving along at an easy clip. However, the prose shows a decided weakness for cop-show cliches; for instance, does anyone actually say “Bingo” when figuring something out, as fictional cops often do? Habitual readers of police thrillers will undoubtedly have plenty of patience when the story introduces a crusty coroner or when Crowder advises Steele to “Think outside the box,” but such moments still manage to feel like unnecessary filler. The book’s climax, by contrast, is a marvel of suspenseful precision, and the key confrontation at the story’s conclusion will have readers holding their breath.
A twisty and highly readable thriller that’s occasionally hampered by cop-fiction clichés.Pub Date: April 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-922329-15-8
Page Count: 351
Publisher: AIA Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.
An aspiring mystery writer sets out to solve her great-aunt’s murder and inherit an estate.
Twenty-five-year-old Annie Adams has never met her great-aunt Frances, who prefers her small village to busy London. But when a mysterious letter arrives instructing Annie to come to Castle Knoll in Dorset to meet Frances and discuss her role as sole beneficiary of her great-aunt’s estate, Annie can’t resist. Unfortunately, she arrives to find Frances’ worst fears have come true: The elderly woman—who’s been haunted for decades by a fortuneteller’s prediction that this will happen—has been murdered, and her will dictates that she will leave her entire estate to Annie, but only if Annie solves her killing. It’s a cheeky if not exactly believable premise, especially since the local police don’t seem terribly opposed to it. Annie herself is an engaging presence, if a little too blind to the fact that she could be on the killer’s to-do list. Her roll call of suspects is pleasingly long, including but not limited to the local vicar, a one-time paramour of her great-aunt’s; a gardener who grows a lot more than flowers; shady developers and suspicious friends from Frances’ past; and Saxon, Annie’s crafty rival, who inherits the estate himself if he manages to solve the case first. Annie pieces together clues through readings of Frances’ journal, but the story eventually runs aground on the twin rocks of too much explanation and a flimsy climax. Cute dialogue gives way to lengthy exposition, and by the time Frances’ killer is revealed you may well be ready to leave Annie, Dorset, and Castle Knoll behind for the firmer ground of reality. Fans of cozy mysteries are likely to be more forgiving, but if you cast a skeptical eye toward amateur sleuths, this novel won’t change your mind about them.
Breezy, entertaining characters and a cheeky premise fall prey to too much explanation and an unlikely climax.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593474013
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
