An absorbing tale with a capable and complex detective.
In Reede’s (Blinked, 2017, etc.) thriller, a Texan private investigator makes headway in her search for her missing sister, who vanished three years ago.
Lana Madison has never stopped looking for her identical twin, Dania, even if the police evidently have. The 23-year-old has such a strong spiritual connection to her sibling that she’s certain that Dania is still alive. After dropping out of college, Lana consulted private investigator Ben Collins, who later hired and trained her. She’s skilled in self-defense tactics, which come in handy when two men abduct her; fortunately, it turns out that the perpetrators may be connected to Dania’s disappearance. Lana investigates them with help from “The Boys”—her computer-savvy pals Kit and James—as well as EJ, who was Dania’s prom date back in high school. One of the traffickers possesses bondage-torture videos, and although the images are blurry, Lana and EJ suspect that Dania is the victim pictured in the footage. Lana also works with fellow private eye Oscar “Oz” Cooke, whose teenage stepdaughter, Cassie, disappeared around the same time as Dania did. Meanwhile, a creepy, unknown stalker is watching Lana as her determination to find her sis puts her, and possibly her friends, in further peril. Reede’s flawed but resolute private eye is an exceptional protagonist. “I’m nobody’s punching bag,” she says—a statement that applies both to social settings and physical confrontations. At the same time, the author shows Lana to be emotionally conflicted, particularly when it comes to romance; she resists her attraction to multiple men (including EJ; Oz; her friend/personal trainer, Favor; and local police detective Samuel Norris), resulting in occasionally awkward—and funny—situations. Scenes from the unnerving stalker’s perspective offer memorable moments, and Lana’s investigation progresses at a steady pace throughout. The plot relies too heavily on coincidence at times, but the extraordinary ending is one that readers won’t easily forget.
An absorbing tale with a capable and complex detective.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64437-023-0
Page Count: 269
Publisher: Black Opal Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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