An irresistibly charming detective cracks another colorful case.
Quirky community, quirky crimes. Thankfully, McAvoy’s on hand to solve them.
Ishmael Piper, 51, lives in County Durham, on the North Sea, in drug-fueled disarray with his girlfriend, Heloise, their 7-year-old daughter, Delilah, multiple cats and a hectoring inner voice that plagues him no end. So addled is he that he doesn’t even notice the inferno that consumes him. Months later, a disturbed man kills a woman whom he identifies as a witch, dragging her into his cottage. Meanwhile, after a dangerous case that “nearly killed them both,” DS Aector McAvoy and his boss and best friend, DSU Trish Pharoah, are on extended sick leave. McAvoy is comfortably ensconced with his wife, Roisin, and their children. He contemplates the upcoming 70th birthday party of his distant mother, Cecilia, with dread. The festivities are indeed unpleasant, with McAvoy feeling like a dismissed 10-year-old and Roisin insulted by a drunken guest. But it’s also where McAvoy gets an earful and then some from ebullient Big Harry about the death of Ishmael, the troubled son of rock legend Moose Piper and the best friend of McAvoy’s annoying stepbrother, Felix Darling. Something about the story he’s told feels off, and McAvoy can’t help but investigate. Shaggy plotting and sly, discursive storytelling are part of this long-running series’ charm. Witness transcripts, multiple perspectives, and even a book review are woven into McAvoy-focused chapters, delivering pieces of the puzzle through full-bodied characters and the anecdotes that accompany them. All the while, the engaging chemistry of Aector and Roisin, a series trademark, is on full display.
An irresistibly charming detective cracks another colorful case.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781448309399
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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