The two unlikely sleuths (The Ninja’s Daughter, 2016, etc.) once again solve a difficult crime, this one with the extra kick...
A return to his home is a painful experience for a shinobi assassin.
Now that Hiro Hattori and the man he was hired to protect, Portuguese priest Father Mateo, have heeded a warning and left the dangers of Kyoto behind, they face new ones in Hiro’s home territory of Iga. The leader of Iga, Hiro’s cousin Hattori Hanzō, has invited them to attend a feast for the delegation from Koga, another shinobi stronghold, who have come to discuss an alliance that could be advantageous in the perilous times they face as the ruthless samurai warlord Oda Nabunaga tries to take over as shogun. The delegation includes Koga Yajiro, Koga Fuyu, Koga Toshi, and Kogo Kiku, a woman who appears to be concealing high status. Unfortunately, Yajiro dies at the table, a victim of poison, and the other Kogas immediately accuse someone from Iga of murder. Other people with access to the food are Neko, the lifelong love who betrayed Hiro; Hiro’s mother, Midori, who cooked the meal; his grandmother Akiko; and her apprentice, Tane, who helped serve it. Knowing the reputation of Hiro and Father Mateo as crime solvers, Hanzō guarantees that they will deliver the murderer within three days. Since Midori had personally prepared mild food that wouldn’t disguise the taste of a quick-acting poison, Hiro must look for another way that someone could have poisoned Yajiro. The members of the Koga delegation are at each other’s throats over the questions of what to do about a treaty and who killed their companion. Hiro finds the whole experience bittersweet, especially as secrets from his past are slowly revealed, changing the way he feels about Neko and his family. The complex rituals of Japanese life must be taken into account before the crime can be solved.
The two unlikely sleuths (The Ninja’s Daughter, 2016, etc.) once again solve a difficult crime, this one with the extra kick that comes from their own personal stake in its outcome.Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63388-277-5
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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