A good old-fashioned mystery novel with a lovable leading man at its heart.
In Allen’s debut mystery, the first of a planned series, a plucky young reporter takes matters into his own hands when his new crush goes missing.
Things look grim for Duncan Walsh, a young Northwestern University School of Journalism graduate. He was fired from his job at Chicago’s Channel 8 News for punching the lecherous (albeit Emmy-award winning) lead news anchor in the neck. As a result, Duncan struggles to get by on little money, living on “ramen noodles, five dollar foot longs, the occasional museum entrance fee, and admittedly, the occasional beer. One had to keep living.” Then he meets Agnes Nowakowski, a beguiling, sharp paleontology tour guide at the Chicago Museum of Natural History. Charmed by her brains and beauty, he takes her on a coffee date, undeterred by the fact that she’s seeing someone else. The unemployed Duncan fills his days with his pursuit of Agnes, hoping to win a second date. Eventually, the two connect by phone but don’t meet, as Agnes is slated to head off to a long archaeological dig in Montana. Duncan is shocked several days later when he sees Agnes’ face on the 10 o’clock news; apparently, she mysteriously disappeared before she even boarded her bus. Duncan is certain that he’ll be a suspect and decides to clear his own name by finding out what happened to Agnes himself. Allen’s page-turner chronicles Duncan’s investigation from start to finish, from his creation of his own online news outlet to get press passes to news conferences to his confrontation with Agnes’ boyfriend, James, about her disappearance. Ultimately, he follows a lead that ends up being far more dangerous than he ever imagined. Allen delivers a well-written mystery that’s equal parts funny and suspenseful. Although the book’s mystery is intriguing, what makes it truly successful is its lead character, Duncan, who’s a relatable, charmingly witty and admirably gutsy narrator. Readers will likely find him the perfect candidate to star in his own mystery series.
A good old-fashioned mystery novel with a lovable leading man at its heart.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1492334903
Page Count: 254
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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