A highly entertaining caper set in a sleazy London underworld.
A low-key jazz guitarist finds himself embroiled in a bitter feud between a high-class escort and a gangland boss in Kent’s novel.
Five years after surviving a shipwreck in the Gulf of Alaska, musician Jason Davey is back home in London, enjoying a relatively tranquil life as a resident guitarist at the Blue Devil nightclub. Then a visit from an old friend, fellow cruise ship worker Sal Jones, leads him down a path that takes him a long way out of his comfort zone. Sal’s friend, sex worker Holly Medford, had £10,000 (and a G-string) stolen from her locker while she was working at a local “gentlemen’s club.”She needed the money to repay a debt to notorious gangster Arthur Braskey, who’s growing increasingly impatient. Someone needs to track down the cash before Holly finds herself in real danger, and because Jason has done a little amateur sleuthing before, Sal thinks that the guitar player would be the ideal man for the job. The £10,000, though, turns out to be a mere drop in the ocean—and Arthur is a less-than-sympathetic creditor, as Jason learns the hard way. Despite the novel’s rather garish title, it’s a fairly impressive crime thriller. Jason is a well-crafted reluctant hero, and Kent’s writing is slick and engaging throughout. Jason has appeared in her fiction before—in 2012’s Cold Play and a later novella—and this entry is a little slow to hit its stride, as the loss of £10,000 and a lingerie item seems a rather modest premise for a crime novel; it’s not until around the halfway mark that things really start to escalate. However, this is a minor gripe, as even when the case seems underwhelming, the prose is strong enough to carry it through. There’s a tangential plotline involving Holly’s brother and a member of Jason’s band that becomes too conveniently relevant to the main story, but this doesn’t detract significantly from what is otherwise a skillfully crafted crime novel.
A highly entertaining caper set in a sleazy London underworld.Pub Date: July 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9880826-5-6
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Blue Devil Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.
Roberts’ latest may move you to tears, or joy, or dread, or all three.
Every summer, John and Cora Fox visit Cora’s mother, Lucy Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky, leaving their children, 12-year-old Thea and 10-year-old Rem, for a two-week taste of heaven. The children love Grammie Lucy far more than John’s snooty family, which looks down on Cora. Lucy, a healer with deep Appalachian roots, loves animals, cooks the best meals, plays musical instruments, and makes soap and candles for her thriving business. Thea—who’s inherited the psychic abilities passed down through the women of Lucy’s family—has vivid magical dreams, one of which becomes a living nightmare when a psychopath robs and murders John and Cora as Thea watches helplessly. Thea’s description of the killer and her ability to see him in real time help the skeptical police catch Ray Riggs, who goes to prison for life. Although Thea and Rem go on to have a wonderful childhood with Grammie, Thea constantly wages a mental battle with Riggs, who tries to use his own psychic abilities to get into her mind. Over the years, Thea uses her imagination to become a game designer while the more business-minded Rem helps manage her career. Thea eventually builds a house near Lucy, where a newly arrived neighbor is her teen crush, singer-songwriter Tyler Brennan. Tyler has his own issues and is protective of his young son but slowly builds a loving relationship with Thea, whose silence about her abilities leads to a devastating misunderstanding. At first Thea tries to keep Riggs locked out of her mind. As her powers grow, she torments him. Finally, she realizes that she must win this battle and destroy him if she’s ever to have peace.
A touching story of love and grief ends in an epic battle of good versus evil.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781250289698
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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