A bold and bracing twist on the fallen-woman-as-victim story.
Finding out about the long-ago murder of her teenage mother fills a woman’s life with terror in this riveting story.
The latest from the prolific Mina is a stand-alone novel. Glasgow doctor Margo Dunlop is grieving the death of her adoptive mother and the breakup of her relationship with the eccentric but affable Joe when she learns she is pregnant. She goes in search of her biological mother and drops right into a nightmare. Months after Margo’s birth and adoption, her mother was brutally murdered. Susan Brodie was a 19-year-old sex worker and former junkie, making her one of the “less dead” of the title, victims the police shrug off as disposable. Margo hears the grisly story when she meets her aunt, Nikki, a survivor of the same desperate circumstances that killed her sister. Nikki might be sober now, but she still has an addict’s deviousness. She is also sure she knows who murdered Susan—a corrupt cop named Martin McPhail—and she urges Margo, who has the money and status Nikki lacks, to help bring him down. The killer, Nikki says, still sends her threatening letters with objects related to Susan’s murder. Margo has barely begun to absorb this disturbing information when she starts getting such letters herself. As she struggles to figure out whom to trust, she’s also dealing with the nasty breakup between her best friend, flighty Lilah, and her obsessive ex, Richard, who is Joe’s brother. Margo meets Jack Robertson, a slickly charming true-crime writer, and Diane Gallagher, an impressive retired police detective, who both know more about Susan’s death than they’re saying. Mina is matchless at building suspicion and creeping dread. Susan might have been a victim, but the novel is filled with strong, resourceful women who won’t let her life and death render her “less."
A bold and bracing twist on the fallen-woman-as-victim story.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-31652-851-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.
The feds must protect an accused criminal and an orphaned girl.
Maybe you’ve met him before as protagonist of The 6:20 Man (2022): Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine, who’d had the dubious fortune to tangle with “the girl on the train,” is now assigned by his homeland security boss to protect Danny Glass, who's awaiting trial on multiple RICO charges in Washington state. Devine has what it takes: He “was a closer, snooper, fixer, investigator,” and, when necessary, a killer. These skills are on full display as the deaths of three key witnesses grind justice to a temporary halt. Glass has a 12-year-old niece, Betsy Odom, and each is the other’s only living relative—her parents recently died of an apparent drug overdose. The FBI has temporary guardianship of Betsy, who's a handful. She tells Travis that though she’s not yet 13, she's 28 in “life-shit years.” The financially well-heeled Glass wants to be her legal guardian with an eye to eventual adoption, but what are his real motives? And what happens to her if he's convicted? Meanwhile, Betsy insists that her parents never touched drugs, and she begs Travis to find out how they really died. This becomes part of a mission that oozes danger. The small town of Ricketts has a woman mayor who’s full of charm on the surface, but deeply corrupt and deadly when crossed. She may be linked to a subversive group called "12/24/65," as in 1865, when the Ku Klux Klan beast was born. Blood flows, bombs explode, and people perish, both good guys and not-so-good guys. Readers might ponder why in fiction as well as in life, it sometimes seems necessary for many to die so one may live. And what about the girl on the train? She's not necessary to the plot, but she's a fun addition as she pops in and out of the pages, occasionally leaving notes for Travis. Maybe she still wants him dead.
Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781538757901
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.
Stephanie Plum’s 31st adventure shows that Trenton’s preeminent fugitive-apprehension agent still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve, and needs every one of them.
The current caseload for Stephanie and Lula—the ex-prostitute file clerk at her cousin Vincent Plum’s bail bonds company, who serves as her unflappable sidekick—begins with two “failures to appear.” Eugene Fleck is suspected of being Robin Hoodie, who robs from the rich and, yes, distributes the proceeds to the poor. Racketeer Bruno Jug, who’s missed his court date on charges of tax evasion, is also suspected of drugging and raping a 14-year-old. But neither of these fugitives can hold a candle to Zoran Djordjevic, aka Fang, a self-proclaimed vampire wanted in connection with the gruesome fate of his late wife and three other missing women. As usual, Stephanie’s personal life is just as helter-skelter as her professional life as a bounty hunter. She’s managed to get herself engaged both to Det. Joe Morelli, of the Trenton PD, and Ranger, a former Special Forces agent who runs a private security firm; she thinks she may be pregnant; and she’s willing to marry the father, whichever of her fiances that turns out to be. On top of it all, her nothingburger schoolmate Herbert Slovinski suddenly pops up at one of the funerals she ferries her Grandma Mazur to, hitting on her relentlessly and gilding his importunities by cleaning and painting her shabby apartment and laying new carpet. Luckily, Lula’s on hand to offer cupcakes that stave off the worst disasters, and whenever this hodgepodge threatens to slow down, another FTA appears, or fails to appear.
As usual, Evanovich handles the funny stuff better (much better) than the mystery stuff.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781668003138
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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