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REYKJAVÍK

A slow-burning, spellbinding whodunit. Agatha Christie, to whom it’s dedicated, would be proud.

The search for answers about a missing schoolgirl takes 30 years to pay off.

Fifteen-year-old Lára Marteinsdóttir, who’d contracted to work the summer of 1956 as a domestic helper for former Supreme Court of Iceland barrister Óttar Óskarsson and his wife, Ólöf Blöndal, in their retreat on the little island of Videy, announces one morning that she’s packed her bags and is leaving early to rejoin her parents in Reykjavík. The couple are jolted by her early departure, but her parents are far more jolted when she never shows up. Since not many young women go missing in Iceland, the case, first investigated by police officer Kristján Kristjánsson, swiftly becomes a cause célèbre, but that doesn’t lead to a solution—not in 1956, not in 1966, not in 1976. It’s not until 1986, on the eve of Reykjavík’s 200th anniversary, that Valur Róbertsson, a promising reporter for the struggling weekly Vikubladid, gets a phone call from someone calling herself Julía that so whets his interest in the case that he keeps overpromising developments to editor Dagbjartur Steinsson, who in turn pushes him harder and harder and even leaks a wildly premature announcement of his upcoming scoop to other news outlets. Valur focuses on a quartet of old friends—Óskarsson himself, city councillor Páll Jóhannesson, developer Högni Eyfjörd, and wholesaler Finnur Stephensen, whose dying words to his actress wife were “You have to go to Videy”—who regularly met on the island. When Valur is unable to deliver the goods, his sister, Sunna Róbertsdóttir, puts her dissertation in comparative literature on hold and takes over the investigation just as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev announce their plans to meet in Reykjavík for their historic summit.

A slow-burning, spellbinding whodunit. Agatha Christie, to whom it’s dedicated, would be proud.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023

ISBN: 9781250907332

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023

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TO DIE FOR

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

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THE GREY WOLF

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

A routine break-in at the home of Sûreté homicide chief Armand Gamache leads slowly but surely to the revelation of a potentially calamitous threat to all Québec.

At first it seems as if nothing at all triggered the burglar alarm at Gamache’s home in Three Pines; it was literally a false alarm. It’s not till he receives a package containing his summer jacket that Gamache realizes someone really did get into his house, choosing to steal exactly this one item and return it with a cryptic note referring to “some malady…water” and “Angelica stems.” Having already refused to meet with Jeanne Caron, chief of staff to Marcus Lauzon, a powerful politician who’s already taken vengeance on Gamache and his family for not expunging his child’s criminal record, Gamache now agrees to meet with Charles Langlois, a marine biologist with ties to Caron who confesses to a leading role in stealing Gamache’s jacket. Their meeting ends inconclusively for Gamache, who’s convinced that Langlois is hiding something weighty, and all too conclusively for Langlois, who’s killed by a hit-and-run driver as he leaves. The news that Langlois had been investigating a water supply near the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups sends Gamache scurrying off to the abbey, where the plot steadily thickens until he’s led to ask how “an old recipe for Chartreuse” can possibly be connected to “a terrorist plot to poison Québec’s drinking water.” That’s a great question, and answering it will take the second half of this story, which spins ever more intricate connections among leading players that become deeply unsettling.

One of those rare triple-deckers that’s actually worth every page, every complication, every bead of sweat.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024

ISBN: 9781250328137

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Minotaur

Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024

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