A leisurely but entertaining finale to a rewarding treasure-hunting series.
In this conclusion to an adventure trilogy, two intrepid friends comb western Asia for the legendary holy robe of Jesus.
In years past, writer Granger Lawton has sought fortunes with his treasure hunter best friend, Bobby McAllister. While the rewards have been sizable, Lawton has never liked the near-death experiences that seem to accompany their escapades. But McAllister assures Lawton that his latest quest will be risk-free. McAllister wants to find the robe of Jesus. The treasure hunter feels this is his destiny; he was born on Christmas Day. Lawton, McAllister and his wife, and assorted bodyguards and archaeologists sail to places like Jerusalem and Istanbul for leads on the robe’s location. Sadly, the danger Lawton hoped to avoid finds the group, as one team member winds up with a bullet in the head. Meanwhile, retired American cop Frank Kipper has eyes on the expedition. He may be more invested in vengeance, as he blames McAllister for his niece’s death years ago and an injury that “resulted in his early retirement from law enforcement.” The already arduous task of tracking down a religious artifact becomes increasingly precarious, especially with a mole planted by Kipper on McAllister’s team. While this novel showcases less action than earlier installments, Ferguson makes up for it in suspense. For example, Lawton suspects a team member’s suicide is actually a second murder and that someone is furtively stunting his attempts to investigate it. Armed religious zealots also prove a menace as the group seemingly gets close to discovering the robe. The author livens up the tale with Lawton and McAllister’s constant but often affectionate bickering, which returning readers will surely expect. Although this story is the series’ most deliberately paced, it lingers on stunning scenery, including in Istanbul: “From the Dolmabahce Palace to the green parks and imperial pavilions of Yildiz Palace…ornate and marble facades” were reflected “in the swiftly moving water.” Furthermore, Ferguson delivers a satisfying ending to both this installment and the trilogy.
A leisurely but entertaining finale to a rewarding treasure-hunting series.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5255-4820-8
Page Count: 486
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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 routine whodunit enlivened by the byplay among the author sleuths and their determination to stand up to the patriarchy.
Five real-life luminaries from the Golden Age of detective fiction team up to solve a murder.
Five months after nurse May Daniels disappeared during a day trip in October 1930 from a railway station near Boulogne-Sur-Mer, a farmer finds her bloody body strangled to death. The French police, unconcerned about the damage they’re doing to the victim and her family, announce on scant evidence that May—whose companion, nurse Celia McCarthy, last saw her entering a ladies’ room she never emerged from—was a drug addict who deserves few tears. By that point, the title quintet—Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Baroness Emma Orczy, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham—have already sprung into action. Their original motive for traveling to France, proving themselves the equals of G.K. Chesterton and the rest of their condescending male counterparts in the newly formed Detection Club, has morphed into a deep sense of connection to the dead nurse and “an urgent quest to do right.” Working mostly with the reticent, brainy Christie, Sayers, who serves as narrator, methodically retraces May’s last movements and works backward to figure out what she was doing before she and Celia embarked on their trip. Their most promising leads implicate Louis Williams, the son of Mathers Insurance founder Jimmy Williams, as May’s benefactor, beau, and killer. But no reader who’s spent time with any of these writers’ own books will believe that the actual solution will be as simple as that.
A routine whodunit enlivened by the byplay among the author sleuths and their determination to stand up to the patriarchy.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781250280756
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© 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.
