Experienced readers will have little trouble solving the mystery, but the likable characters and Edie’s slow progress in...
Two wildly different ladies are challenged by yet another death in the Amish community of Blue Sky.
Since Kappy King and her best friend, Edie Peachy, have already solved several murders (Kappy King and the Pickle Kaper, 2018, etc.), police officer Jack Jones isn’t surprised when they stick their noses into a new tragedy. Many rumors abound about why Alma Miller is in the hospital in a coma, but Kappy knows more than most because Jack’s asked her for help in deciphering some words written in flour on Alma’s kitchen floor. Jack thinks these words may be in Pennsylvania Dutch, but Kappy says that they’re in English rendered obscure by Alma’s bad penmanship. Even so, she finds it hard to make sense of what appear to be the words "nine babies" and "ME blue." Edie, who’s been banned by the community for going over to the English world, is attracted to Jack, who’s especially good with her younger brother, Jimmy, a hard worker with Down syndrome who loves animals and helps Edie continue their murdered mother’s beagle-breeding business. Alma was well-liked, but many were jealous of her prizewinning pies—especially Frannie Lehman, who’s tired of finishing second. Since none of the Amish will talk to Edie, Kappy must ask all the questions as they dig into Alma’s background looking for clues to the cryptic message she left. Jack thinks Frannie is the best bet, especially after he learns that the only things missing from Alma’s home are a quilt and her recipe box. This year’s pie contest involves high stakes: One of the judges who represents Mrs. O’Malley’s Pies may want to purchase the recipe for the winning boysenberry pie. Insider knowledge and long memories will help Kappy and Edie solve the crime.
Experienced readers will have little trouble solving the mystery, but the likable characters and Edie’s slow progress in re-embracing her Amish side will keep fans coming back for more.Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4201-4301-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Zebra/Kensington
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
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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