Simon (When Bunnies Go Bad, 2016, etc.), a former Bostonian who once wrote for magazines covering the music scene, kicks off...
A woman obsessed with the Boston rock music scene of 20 years ago discovers that it’s not quite what she remembers.
Forty-something Tara Winton hates her comfortable but dull job in corporate communications, so she jumps at the chance to write a story for Scott Hasseldeck at the slick City magazine, a far cry from the fanzine to which they both contributed back in the day. Tara’s ex-husband, Peter, is still trying to get her to grow up by making suggestions about buying a condo and a better car. But they still have occasional sex, and he’s there for her when she wants an escort to the funeral of Frank Turcotte , a former rocker who gave up booze, found Jesus, and married the love of his life, wild child Neela Johnson. The service brings back plenty of memories for Tara, who’s still close friends with Min, whose affair with Frank ended in an abortion. Whatever plans Frank had for a steady life with Neela ended when Neela fell hard for rising star Chris Crack, lead singer of the Aught Nines, a band about to make it big when Chris died from an overdose. Now, years later, his rival Frank has fallen down the basement stairs to his death, and there are rumors that it was no accident. Tara’s questions about the past apparently upset someone enough to slash all her tires. As she learns more, she realizes how naïve she was and how many undercurrents she missed. Did Chris really die from an accidental overdose, and is his death connected to Frank’s more recent accident?
Simon (When Bunnies Go Bad, 2016, etc.), a former Bostonian who once wrote for magazines covering the music scene, kicks off her Boston Noir series with a fascinating reminiscence of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But any hint of murder remains a hint right up to the unsatisfying end.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8733-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
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
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...
A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.
Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk.
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
