A big-tent extravaganza in more ways than one.
Hayden McCall, a Seattle middle school teacher and gay dating blogger, gets involved with the pansexual crew that runs a circus troupe.
Magician Kennedy Osaka, the new artistic director of Mysterium, a contemporary circus, has big plans to make it more exciting. Meanwhile, Hayden and his friend Hollister are treated to tickets to a VIP preview show by his neighbor Sarah Lee, Kennedy’s old college roommate, who can’t make it herself because she’s getting ready for a fundraiser for Bakers Without Borders, where Kennedy has agreed to perform the next night. Before the world can see whether the magician’s onstage chops are matched by her ability to herd Mysterium’s cats, her leadership is cut short: Sarah Lee finds her in her room at the Park Olympic Hotel, stabbed to death with a pair of designer scissors. The hotel’s security videos prove unhelpful, and the cops’ interest in the case is limited to suspecting Sarah Lee, so Hayden and Hollister decide to investigate on their own. Eventually their suspicions coalesce around three groups of possibles. Cowgirl comedian Kit Durango and hair-bun acrobat Yaz Smilova are the most likely candidates to succeed Kennedy as Mysterium’s director. Boris and Sasha Smilov, Yaz’s father and brother, are respectively the troupe’s owner and its head of operations. And Vlad Halep, along with Florin, Marku, and Stefan, his partners in the Romanian acrobatic group Adrenalin!, would catch anyone’s eye—especially Hayden’s, since he’s increasingly certain that Venezuelan dancer Camilo Rodriquez is never going to requite his love. Since Hayden and Hollister’s main approaches to sleuthing are making wrong guesses and spreading rumors designed to goad the killer into striking out at them, readers shouldn’t expect a densely plotted mystery. Like Mysterium, it’s best approached as an LGBTQ+ circus whose inclusiveness extends to the dead.
A big-tent extravaganza in more ways than one.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781639106479
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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