A riveting novel ripped from the headlines of the Wall Street Journal.
Boston’s rising-star financial detectives McBain and O’Daniel uncover a scheme of fraud and murder in Masters’ debut mystery.
Masters’ story takes place in Boston’s downtown, near the financial district and in the wealthy suburb of Brookline soon after the financial meltdown and Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Boozy McBain, a Wall Street trader–turned-detective, and his partner, Boston O’Daniel, a fiery redhead and the police captain’s daughter, reveal a talent for financial fraud investigation and for reaching large settlements with money managers who’ve scammed their clients. While celebrating his latest victory at his favorite watering hole, McBain meets Christina Baker, a 30-something raven-haired beauty with a sharp wit and even sharper tongue. His interests are purely social, but Baker has just lost her inheritance and her parents in an apparent double suicide; she wants her money back and justice. With mixed motives and strong reservations, McBain agrees to investigate the case on his own time. When O’Daniel discovers her partner’s off-the-books activities, she’s intrigued by the case and joins the paper chase. Although McBain and O’Daniel can’t find proof of criminal activity, their client presses, certain that her parents’ financial adviser, Roche is somehow involved. As the investigation turns up new leads, ties are made between her parents’ physician, Lehmann, and Roche. Pulling on the loose threads, the detectives begin to unravel an elaborate scheme of fraud, murder and personal betrayal in which greed, passion and family secrets hide behind proper appearances. Masters’ well-written story weaves together exquisite plot twists, believable characters and realistic dialogue, resulting in a story that flies by in vividly descriptive writing: In McBain’s favorite bar, “The room hummed softly to the engine of glass, ice, and conversation,” and in an exchange between Baker and McBain: “You do like your martinis….Why do you drink so many?” “They’re what some of us have instead of children.” A novel this good isn’t beginner’s luck; indeed, Masters’ consummate writing skills, his work on Wall Street and his experience living in Boston drive a most authentic storyline.
A riveting novel ripped from the headlines of the Wall Street Journal.Pub Date: March 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615956589
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Lost Haven Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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