Cornwell’s piecemeal approach to her heroine’s daunting job is more realistic than compelling.
Back in her post as Virginia’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds things just as messy among the living as the dead.
Even though her killer has cut off her hands, the corpse du jour is soon identified as that of Gwen Hainey, a biomedical engineer from Thor Laboratories, who just happened to live two doors down from Scarpetta’s sister, Dorothy, and her husband, ex-cop shamus Pete Marino. Called out to assist U.S. Park Police investigator August Ryan, Scarpetta, urged on by Officer Blaise Fruge—whose mother, Dr. Greta Fruge, is a toxicologist Scarpetta came to trust before she left Virginia for Boston—connects Hainey’s murder with the months-old death of Cammie Ramada, a jogger who was drowned only a short distance away. Dr. Elvin Reddy, Scarpetta’s politically minded predecessor, short-circuited the earlier investigation by ruling the death an accident even though it was highly unusual for him to get involved directly at all. As she battles Reddy, largely through Maggie Cutbush, the British secretary he left behind to undermine his successor, Scarpetta has other worries as well. In a development that will remind fans of Cornwell’s non-Scarpetta thriller Quantum (2019), she’s called to the White House to conduct what turns out to be a long-distance autopsy by proxy on a pair of astronauts aboard a Thor orbiting laboratory who’ve apparently been killed by a barrage of space debris. And she’s poisoned by a bottle of Bordeaux she was given by irreproachable Gabriella Honoré, the first female secretary general of Interpol. After the usual professional infighting, all these separate cases are wound up with a series of casual snaps that will leave you gasping, and not in a good way.
Cornwell’s piecemeal approach to her heroine’s daunting job is more realistic than compelling.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-311219-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
The most richly accomplished of the brothers’ pairings to date—and given Connelly’s high standards, that’s saying a lot.
Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer team up to exonerate a woman who’s already served five years for killing her ex-husband.
The evidence against Lucinda Sanz was so overwhelming that she followed the advice of Frank Silver, the B-grade attorney who’d elbowed his way onto her defense, and pleaded no contest to manslaughter to avoid a life sentence for shooting Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Roberto Sanz in the back as he stalked out of her yard after their latest argument. But now that her son, Eric, is 13, old enough to get recruited by local gangs, she wants to be out of stir and at his side. So she writes to Mickey Haller, who asks his half-brother for help. After all his years working for the LAPD, Bosch is adamant about not working for a criminal defendant, even though Haller’s already taken him on as an associate so that he can get access to private health insurance and a UCLA medical trial for an experimental cancer treatment. But the habeas corpus hearing Haller’s aiming for isn’t, strictly speaking, a criminal defense proceeding, and even a cursory examination of the forensic evidence raises Bosch’s hackles. Bolstered by Bosch’s discoveries and a state-of-the-art digital reconstruction of the shooting, Haller heads to court to face Assistant Attorney General Hayden Morris, who has a few tricks up his own sleeve. The endlessly resourceful courtroom back-and-forth is furious in its intensity, although Haller eventually upstages Bosch, Morris, and everyone else in sight. What really stands out here, however, is that Connelly never lets you forget, from his title onward, the life-or-death issues behind every move in the game.
The most richly accomplished of the brothers’ pairings to date—and given Connelly’s high standards, that’s saying a lot.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780316563765
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
A compelling take on the classic whodunit.
The shocking murder of a public figure at a high-end hotel has everyone guessing who the culprit might be.
Twenty-five-year-old Molly Gray, an eccentric young woman who's obsessed with cleaning but doesn't quite have the same ability to navigate social cues as those around her, loves working as a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel. Raised by her old-fashioned grandmother, who loved nothing more than cleaning and watching Columbo reruns, Molly has an overly polite and straightforward manner that can make her seem odd and off-putting to her colleagues despite her being the hardest worker at the hotel. After her grandmother's death, Molly's rigid life begins to lose some of its long-held balance, and when the infamous Mr. Charles Black, a rich and powerful businessman suspected of various criminal enterprises, is found murdered in one of the rooms she cleans, her whole world gets turned upside down. Before Molly knows what's happening, her odd demeanor has the police convinced she's guilty of the crime, and certain people at the hotel are a little too pleased about it. With the help of a few new friends (and while fending off new foes), she must begin to untangle the mystery of who really killed Mr. Black to get herself off the hook once and for all. Though the unusual ending might frustrate some readers, this unique debut will keep them reading.
A compelling take on the classic whodunit.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35615-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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