Tag Archives: mystery

Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly, by Adrian McKinty*****

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I listened to the audio version of this quirky, darkly funny mystery, set in Belfast. I only use audio books while I use my exercise bike. I hate exercise like grim death, and so my audio book is my incentive. My rule for myself is that it’s okay to stop cycling early, but if I do, I have to stop the book also. I never quit early while I was listening to this book.

The reader has a lovely Irish accent, and while I don’t know accents well enough to know whether it’s a Belfast accent, it certainly worked for me.

McKinty develops Sean Duffy in a way that is believable and sympathetic, and there are a couple of surprise twists that made me laugh out loud. I wonder whether McKinty made himself laugh while he was writing. It must have been immensely satisfying.

My thanks go to the Goodreads friends that persuaded me to try this book. I seldom dive into an unknown series this far in, but I had no trouble keeping up with it, and will certainly watch for future installments. I read enough mysteries that most of them have a sameness to them. This one doesn’t.

Highly recommended.

The Paris Diversion, by Chris Pavone*****

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Chris Pavone is the real deal. The Paris Diversion sees the return of CIA employee Kate Moore, the protagonist from his first novel, The Expats. This taut, intense thriller is his best to date, and that’s saying a good deal. Lucky me, I read it free thanks to Net Galley and Crown, but you can get it tomorrow, May 7, 2019.

Kate wears many hats, moving deftly from professional spy to primary caretaker of two children, one of whom is medically fragile. Her husband Dexter calls himself an investor, but he’s basically just a weasel. His weak character comes into play in a big way in this story as he is tied to a shady financial deal that in turn is tied–though he doesn’t know it– to a terrifying terrorist event that takes place in the heart of France:

“She gasps. She is surprised at her reaction, like an amateur. She has never before seen anything like this. No one here has. What she sees:  a man is standing all alone in the middle of the vast open space, looking tiny. He’s wearing a bulky vest, and a briefcase sits at his feet, the sort of luggage that in action-adventure films follows around the president of the United States, a shiny case lugged around by a tall square-jawed man wearing a military uniform, a handsome extra with no speaking lines. The nuclear codes…Yes, Dexter was right: that’s a suitcase bomb.”

Events unfold seen from the viewpoints of several different characters. In addition to Kate, we have the bomb-wearer; his American driver; the sniper assigned to take the bomb-wearer out; billionaire Hunter Do-You-Know-Who-I-Am Forsyth; and a mysterious woman using the name Susanna. Points of view change frequently, and the brief chapters become even briefer as the story unfolds, creating even more suspense. Pavone (that’s three syllables—Puh-vo-KNEE) has keen insight into the lies weak people tell themselves to justify their poor choices, and at times he is wickedly funny. Favorites here are the internal monologue of our ass hat billionaire; the moment Kate takes down the security guard; and the exchange between Kate and Hunter’s assistant, Schuyler.

Because I spend several hours of every day reading, I can almost always put a book down, even an excellent one. For the best books, I reserve good-sized blocks of time when I won’t be interrupted, and these are the ones I read with joy, rather than out of duty to the publisher. But it’s been awhile since I stayed up late because I had to know how a book ended. The prose here is so tightly woven that every word is important; in most books of the genre, there’s a winding down period at the end of the book after the climax has been reached and the problem resolved. In contrast, Pavone moves at warp speed until almost the last word of the last chapter.

I have rarely seen a male writer that can craft a believable female character, and Pavone does that. I appreciate his respect for women. In addition, it appears that Kate may have met her own Moriarti, and so I suspect both she and her nemesis will be back. I hope so.

To say more is to waste words, an unfair tribute to a bad ass writer who wastes none. Get this book and read it. You won’t be sorry.

The A List, by J.A. Jance*****

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Best-selling author J.A. Jance is something of a legend here in Seattle, and I came to her work as a huge fan of the J.P. Beaumont series. It took me awhile to bond to the Ali Reynolds series—which is set in Not-Seattle– but I am all in it now.  Big thanks go to Net Galley and Gallery Books for the review copy.

Our story commences inside a prison where a killer is spending what’s left of his life and plotting vengeance. On his arm are tattooed 5 initials which comprise his “A list” for the five people he wants dead. He understands he’ll have to hire out the “wet work,” but that’s okay. The voice Jance gives this character sends chills up and down my neck, and I don’t get that way easily. We learn that Ali, our protagonist, is on that list.

Once the reader’s attention is secure, we go through a complex but clear and necessary recap, which gets us through the essential information that’s developed during the first 13 books of the series, which is set in Arizona. So here, I have to tell you that I don’t recommend starting the series with this book. I have read all or most of the series, but with a year or so passing between each of these, I very much needed this recap to refresh my memory. Young readers with sterling memories might be able to keep up with it, but the audience that will love this story best are middle class Caucasian women over 40. The reader doesn’t necessarily have to go all the way back to the first book to begin reading, but I would urge you to go back to an earlier book somewhere else in the series and work your way forward. The books fly by quickly, and it’s definitely worth it. While some authors lose the urgency in their prose when they get older, Jance just gets leaner and sharper, and this story is among the very best I’ve seen her write, which says a lot.

The premise is centered around The Progeny Project, a nonprofit organization that helps children born through artificial insemination find their biological relatives for the purpose of learning about their own medical background. It begins when one such young man, in desperate need of a new kidney, makes a public plea for information on Ali’s television news program. Results come in quickly and reveal that Dr. Eddie Gilchrist’s fertility clinic did not use the donors he advertised, instead inseminating his many female patients with his own sperm. Events unfold, and the doctor is convicted of murder, and is sent away for life in prison. From there, he seeks revenge.

The plot is among the most original I have seen in many years, and its execution requires tight organization, which Jance carries off brilliantly. She could have written this mystery successfully without lending a lot of attention to the characters, but she doesn’t do that. It’s the combination of an intricate but clear plot and resonant characters that makes this story exceptional.

In an earlier book we were introduced to Frigg, an AI entity created by an IT guy that works for an internet security company owned by B. Simpson, Ali’s husband. Frigg disregards what she considers to be unreasonable laws against hacking, and attempts to take Frigg down completely have been foiled by the AI herself. This scenario creates all sorts of vastly amusing problems when Ali herself needs personal security; Frigg learns she is on the A List, and her vigilance is both essential and illegal, at times.

The second and most fascinating character is Hannah Gilchrist, the elderly, very wealthy mother of Dr. Eddie. When she learns that her only son has decided to have everyone responsible for his ruin killed, she decides she’s going to help him. She has terminal cancer and no other children, and a sort of modern, rich Ma Barker personality emerges. Hannah is a dynamic character and I absolutely love the way Jance develops her, laying waste to a multitude of sexist stereotypes.

If I could change one thing, I would have Jance lose the word “gangbanger,” a stereotype in itself, and include some positive Latino characters in the Reynolds series.

Make no mistake, this mystery is brainy and complicated. You don’t want to read it after you have taken your sleeping pill. But the masterful way Jance braids the plot, the return of Frigg, and the development of Hannah all make it well worth the reader’s effort. But again—don’t let this be the first of the series for you. Climb aboard an earlier entry and work your way into it. In fact, newbie readers will likely have an advantage over long time readers, because you can read these mysteries in succession without having to wait a year to come back to the series.

With that caveat, this mystery is highly recommended.

The Invited, by Jennifer McMahon

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Delicious! This book is straight-up fun. McMahon—a successful author, but new to me—takes an old school ghost story and drops it into a contemporary setting, while providing alternating glimpses of what happened in this same place long ago. My thanks go to Net Galley and Doubleday for the review copy. You can get this book Tuesday, April 30, 2019, and I don’t know how you can stand the suspense until then.

Helen and Nate are ready for rural life. Using recently inherited funds, they purchase a chunk of land in Vermont, quit their jobs, sell their Connecticut condo, and head for the hinterlands. They will build their own house. They will get chickens and sell eggs on the side. They will grow their own food and be almost self-sufficient. Just smell that fresh air! Oh, aren’t they adorable.

Meanwhile, Olive, who has recently lost her mother and whose father is unraveling, is channeling Wednesday Addams, lurking in trees nearby and wishing these new people gone. “I banish you,” she says quietly. No one hears; well, nobody alive does anyway.

Nate and Helen are hurt and perplexed by the local residents’ reception. Why is everyone so surly? Why are they looking at them side-eyed all the time?  Turns out the locals don’t want them upsetting Hattie’s ghost. Everybody knows that Hattie is in the bog that is part of Helen and Nate’s land. The last owner, an elderly man that fled to Florida and won’t talk about it, apart from advising the new owners to get out of there also, saw some things. Not everyone does, though. Hattie chooses who will see her, hear from her. And Hattie isn’t happy.

At first, Nate and Helen are oblivious. Their belongings disappear, but that turns out to be Olive, whom they will befriend. But the more Helen learns about Hattie—who reveals herself to Helen and Olive both—the more distracted she is by her. Time and money that should be directed toward the house and improvements to the new property are instead spent on deep research, and on carrying out Hattie’s wishes. It becomes an obsession; first she procures a hunk of wood from the tree on which Hattie was hanged, thinking it will be perfect to frame the doorway she and Nate are building. Hey, who wouldn’t want something like that in their new home? Next, she finds old bricks from the mill where Hattie’s daughter died. And Nate can see this is just nuts, and he tries to talk her out of it, but she won’t let him in. She is lying to him now. But Nate has an obsession of his own: he keeps seeing an albino deer that visits him, and then leads him into the swamp.

A man could get lost in there. Nate wouldn’t be the first.  

Olive is on a mission of her own. She wants to find the treasure that Hattie buried somewhere near the bog. She is sure it is there, and it was a project that she and her mother worked on together. She secretly hopes that if she can find the treasure, her mother will come home to her.

The mystery of where Olive’s mama has gone segues in and out of the ghost story, and the plotting is deft and surefooted, never slowing, never inconsistent, and relentlessly absorbing. Helen is obsessed with Hattie; Nate is obsessed with the deer; Olive is obsessed with the treasure and her mama; and I am obsessed with this story.

The typical way for a book like this to end would be with the discovery that some sketchy character has somehow created all of the events that seem otherworldly in order to profit materially or achieve revenge. Although I am impressed with McMahon as we near the climax, part of me is expecting this. But this writer doesn’t use tired plot points or tired characters, and she sure as hell doesn’t end this tale in a way that is trite or expected. I guessed one aspect of the ending, but by the time I saw it coming, we were closing in on it, and I can’t help but believe the author means me to see it just before it’s revealed. And this is a hallmark of an excellent thriller: there aren’t brand new characters or plot points tossed in at the end that make it impossible for the reader to have guessed what’s going on. McMahon is a champ, and her respect for her readership is evident in the way she spins the climax and conclusion.

The book’s last paragraph is masterful.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy a classic, well turned ghost story. As for me, I’ll be watching for this author in the future, and….oh hey. Did you hear something just now?

Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim*****

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The buzz around this mystery started early, and it started loud. If it hadn’t I am not sure I’d have asked to read it. When I saw the premise—the use of a hyperbaric oxygen tank to murder an autistic child—I thought wow, this author is reaching. But a quick web crawl taught me that though controversial, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is actually used to treat autism. The treatment is controversial but the basis of the story is a sound one, so I have learned something already, and now that I’ve read it, I am glad I didn’t let it pass me by. Big thanks go to Net Galley and Sarah Crichton Books for the review copy. Miracle Creek will be available to the public April 16, 2019.

The HBOT therapy device is owned by Pak and Young Yoo.  A lot of hard work and financial struggle went into procuring this device; there were years when they had to live apart, with Young and their daughter Mary in Baltimore, Young working round the clock for room, board, and her daughter’s private school tuition while Pak worked two jobs in Korea, squirreling away resources. Now the unthinkable has occurred—the chamber has gone up in flames with patients inside it. Two people are dead and others are horribly injured, and there’s an intensive investigation that leads to an arrest. Elizabeth, a single mother, is charged with starting the fire in order to murder her little boy and free herself from the difficult caregiver role. On the surface, the facts are damning indeed, but what the cops don’t know, at least in the beginning, is that every single person that was there that day is lying about it.

Elizabeth, Kitt, and Teresa are mothers of autistic children, digging deep and running up their credit cards hoping for miraculous transformations. The seventh patient is Matt, whose wife has pressured him into trying this treatment to raise his sperm count. The other characters in this story are the Yoo family that own and operate the chamber, and the legal teams assembled for the trial.

Most legal thrillers and courtroom mysteries hinge heavily upon what happens in the courtroom. In contrast, although what plays out in court is not unimportant, the real meat of this story has to do with the actions, thoughts, and memories of the townspeople that are involved, primarily when court is not in session. Although our point of view is the third person omniscient, specific critical details are revealed to us in stages, and what we learn at the end differs greatly from the conclusions most of us will have drawn at the outset, when we had less information.

Why do people lie, and in particular, why would anyone lie to the authorities investigating a deadly disaster like this one? Make a list of the possibilities, and as you read, you’ll see them all, a veritable potpourri of bald-faced lies and critical omissions of facts. At the end of it, we find just one (lying) person that has integrity and pure motives, and everyone else has crossed a line, not only legally but ethically. And although there’s just one character here that I’d describe as dynamic, the others are developed to an extent as their layers of rationalization, anger, fear, resentment, and greed are revealed to us.

This is an explosive debut, and Angie Kim is a force to be reckoned with. You want to read this book, and happily, you won’t have to wait long. Highly recommended.

The Last Act, by Brad Parks***-****

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Tommy Jump needs money.  His acting gig is about to end and his girlfriend Amanda is pregnant. Then an old childhood friend contacts him about an unusual acting role—that of criminal. Tommy and Danny go back a long way; Danny invites Tommy to sit down and asks him to do a job for the FBI that involves infiltrating a prison. It’s risky and involves being locked up for a goodly while, but the money is enough to live off of for years, and the upfront payment will provide for Amanda and the baby while he is away. It doesn’t take long for Tommy to agree.

I was invited by Random House Dutton to read and review this psychological thriller, the first of a new series.  Author Brad Parks has won the Shamus, Nero, and Lefty awards, so it’s fun to get in on the ground floor here. This book is for sale now. (Another title by this author, “Closer Than You Know,” was released the same day but isn’t from this series.)

While Tommy—who now poses as Pete Goodrich, a high school teacher locked up for his one and only felony—is away, Amanda, who’s an artist, gets an invitation to meet with a prominent gallery owner. Turns out the gallery owner wants Amanda to share something more personal than paintings, and here I have to wonder why this thread is even included.  Jodie Foster, an actor, producer, and director, once remarked that men all tend to go down the same path when determining motivation for a female character.  Almost reflexively, they say it was rape. She must’ve been raped. She is traumatized by rape. And so when the gallery owner reaches into Amanda’s shirt, I roll my eyes and say, here we go again.

Fortunately, this event has little to do with the rest of the story, and once we are past it and back in jail with Tommy Pete, the pace quickens and tightens. Our protagonist is charged with getting close to a big player in a Columbian cartel, a man in possession of important documents that Danny says can crack this whole case. Tommy takes risk after risk in ways that were never planned and that could, if things go amiss, either buy him an extended sentence he’ll probably have to serve, or worse, could get him dead. The prose is taut, and the pages turn themselves. Who’s lying, and who’s telling the truth?

The story is almost entirely Tommy’s, but we briefly meet Tommy’s mother. Amanda and Tommy go visit her before he pleads guilty, and initially I bristle when they agree on the drive over to tell Tommy’s mother to ‘behave herself.’  Perhaps it’s because I am the mother of three grown sons, but I felt a snarl forming when I read this. Don’t talk to your mother that way! But that disappears completely when we meet this woman, whose nickname is “the BBC” because of her propensity to share personal information widely. I love this character! I. LOVE. THIS. CHARACTER. Our time spent with her is way too fleeting, but since we are on book one of the series, I suspect she is introduced to us for future reference. I hope Park will develop her with care and skill. I want to see Park develop a female character, but in particular, I want to see him develop this one. Because I really, truly, very muchly looove—wait. Did I already say this?

Ahem. I may have gotten carried away. Now where were we? Ah yes, this is the place where I ruin the ending by telling you how it all shakes out. No, of course not! Go get it and see for yourself.

Recommended to Parks’s readers, and to those that enjoy a good series.

The Trespasser, by Tana French*****

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My first Tana French novel, but definitely not my last. In addition to being excellent, the audio version is voiced beautifully by Hilda Fay, who is also new to me; her interpretation is outstanding, and the thick Irish accent makes it still more engaging. 

I listen to audio books when I use my stationary bike. My rule for myself is that if I stop cycling before the time I have set for myself, I also have to turn off the audio book early; on the other hand, if I complete my assigned time, I allow myself to continue listening while I prepare dinner. With this book I didn’t stop early even once, because I couldn’t stand to quit listening. 

Our protagonist, Detective Antoinette Conway, is a character from The Dublin Murder Squad, and I have read none of these. If I had had the entire series in front of me, I’d have begun with the first, but as it was I had only this one, and I had no problem keeping up with it. Perhaps if I had the insights into character that come with a longer series, it would have been even richer; in this one Conway is experiencing burnout of the first order as well as fed up with the sexual harassment that women cops deal with. An old friend has offered her a job as a bodyguard to celebrities; the fact that she is dark-skinned and female would actually count in her favor there. And she is seriously considering it, especially after she and her partner Steve are saddled with what appears to be just one more cut-and-dried case of murder-by-boyfriend. But of course, all is not as it seems.

There’s one aspect of the solution that has been used many times by other writers, but here it is fresher because of the writer’s voice and skill. However, there are a couple of curves that are also included–no spoilers–that are a complete surprise and yet also entirely credible. 

Goodreads friends recommended this writer and her DMS series to me years ago, and I told myself I’d get around to it. I cannot believe I waited this long. Tana French is on my list of authors now, and although I have heard that this book is her best, I want to go back and read her earlier work too, because I have a hunch that French’s second best, third best and so forth are likely to shine brighter than the best produced by a number of other crime writers. 

Highly recommended, especially with St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner. 

The Wolf and the Watchman, by Niklas Natt och Dag****

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“From a collection of parts all individually worthless, a clockwork is formed that functions anew.”

This guy can write. Many thanks go to Atria Books for the two invitations to read and review as well as the gorgeous hardcover book for review. Happy publication day; this book is available to the public now.

We find ourselves in Stockholm at the end of the eighteenth century; it’s a tense time, with a political backlash resulting from the French Revolution and the fears it excites among those in power. The poor lead miserable lives, and life itself is cheap. There are very few protections in place for the vulnerable.

Mickel Cardell, the one-armed watchman, pulls a corpse—or what’s left of it–out of the Larder Lake. He sends the children that found it to get a cop. One thing leads to another, and then the chief of police, Johan Gustaf Norlin, sends for Cecil Winge.  The two men know one another well.

Winge is the most tragic hero I’ve seen in a long time. He’s dying of consumption (typhus), and he has left his wife because he doesn’t want her to have to watch him die; also, he’s impotent, and it’s painful to walk in on her with another man. Not that he blames her; he’d just prefer not to watch or hear it. He’s an attorney and has all the money he needs, but this is one time that money doesn’t help all that much. His illness prevents him from sleeping well, and he’s inclined to seek a challenge here or there when he can in order to distract himself from his own condition. Norlin has a distraction for him now. Winge reminds him that the last time he helped him with a case, Norlin had promised not to ask again; but Norlin is asking anyway.

The title comes into it when Winge interviews the textile merchant that recognizes the distinctive shroud in which the body was wrapped. The merchant is financially ruined and plans to climb aboard the ship bound for his home and then jump off into cold deep water and die. Before he boards, he points out that man is a lupine hunter, and that Winge himself is well on the way:

“No one can run with the wolf pack without accepting its terms. You have both the fangs and the glint of the predator in your eye…one day your teeth will be stained red and then you’ll know with certainty how right I was. Your bite will be deep. Maybe you will prove the better wolf, Mr. Winge, and on that note I bid you good night.”

The historical setting and characters here are beautifully drawn; for some reason, I like the moments when a character reaches up and yanks his wig off because it’s itchy and it’s driving him nuts. A number of characters are resonant, but Winge—who is perfect for the reader that needs an excuse to just sit down and cry—and Cardell, who holds his own in a fight surprisingly well, even with one arm—are my favorites. It is they, imperfect individually, that together make up the clockwork that functions anew.

Those of us that read a lot of books within the mystery genre (and its many offshoots) see a lot of the same settings and plots almost often enough to create a mystery story using MadLibs. Just fill in the blanks. In contrast, the unique setting, well-developed characters, and bad ass word smithery in this one are a potent combination.

And now I have to admit that for me, it is too potent. There is a great deal of detail about the corpse’s mutilation, and once I pushed my way past it, it came up again and again, because it’s right at the center of the case they are solving. So although for some this mystery will be, as the promotional blurb promises, “deliciously dark,” for me it is far too dark. In fact, I cannot remember ever using the word “shocking” as a descriptor within a review, but I’ll use it now. There are some things that cannot be unread once you have read them. I haven’t had my gut turn over in this way in several years, and I don’t ever want to go there again.

But that’s me. My daughter is not as easily horrified as I am; she may love this book.

Those contemplating purchasing this well-scribed novel should do one thing, and that is to carefully read the promotional description. It does warn the reader. The first time I saw it, I read that blurb and decided not to read it; then I was invited to read and review, and I accepted the widget but declined to sign up for a blog tour in case I couldn’t stand it; but then I was offered a hard copy, and I saw that other reviewers loved it, and my resistance worn down, I caved. Once I had it, I felt like I had to read it even when it was beyond the point of not being a fun read. But if you can read that blurb and are still game, then by all means you should get it, because all of the technical skills that make up an award winning novel are here in spades and the urgency never lets up. Highly recommended for those that are not even a tiny bit squeamish and have strong literacy skills.

Who Killed the Fonz? By James Boice***

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I was invited to read and review this strange little book by Net Galley and Simon and Schuster, and I thank them. It’s for sale now.

Fonzie is the eternally cool lone-wolf character in the television sitcom “Happy Days,” which was aired during the 1970s and early 1980s, back before the internet and the digital era gave us choices. The show is set in the 1950s, with malt shops, sock hops, and so forth. Richie Cunningham was the main character, an ordinary small town teen who was befriended by the Fonz.  This book morphs forward to the 1980s, which places Richie—er, Richard—in middle age. He’s a Hollywood producer but is called back home by the death of Fonzie.

When I saw this book in my email, I wasn’t sure what to think. How does anyone write this book? Neither Richie nor the Fonz was anything more than a stock character during the series itself. Every problem encountered by any character had to be resolved with humor and warmth within thirty minutes—more like twenty once advertising is figured in. So my first assumption was that this must be some sort of dark satire. But that would be very edgy and risky, and I wasn’t sure Simon would touch something like that. But, it’s an invitation and a quick read, so let’s have a look.

Satire it isn’t. It’s promoted as noir, and it isn’t that either.  I can go sit in the garage. I can say I am a car. I can get my children to all say I am a car. I still won’t be a car, or for that matter a motorcycle. And so I’m telling you right now that this is, in spite of its quirky title and book cover, a cozy mystery, period. It is what it is.

Now, that’s not a bad thing. There are a lot of readers that enjoy a good cozy, and it seems likely that a lot of those readers will fall into the demographic to which this story appeals, namely the Boomer generation, the readers that watched Happy Days when they were young and (hopefully) happy.

So here we are, back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Potsie and Ralph Malph distrust Richard because he has become some sort of Hollywood big shot. His career is on the rocks, but they don’t know that; all they know is that he’s come back to the Midwest wearing designer clothes, and when he calls himself “Richard,” they snicker. But ultimately they all work together to unsnarl issues of local corruption as well as the mystery about Fonzie, and Richard realizes he is really still Richie.

So we have corn; we have cheese; and we have cheese corn. But it’s an accessible story that will provide a pleasant level of distraction that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of concentration or analysis. If your gram is undergoing chemo, she can take this into treatment and it will help keep her warm.

I recommend this book to those that primarily read cozy mysteries and are familiar with the series.

The Wedding Guest, by Jonathan Kellerman****

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The wedding guest is dead, slumped on the toilet, strangled. Is she someone invited by the bride’s family, or the groom’s? Neither one. Total stranger…or so they say. The thirty-fourth book in the Alex Delaware series comes out tomorrow, February 5, 2019. I read it free and early thanks to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine. 

Kellerman is a child psychiatrist, and his knowledge and experience dealing with children and their families provides him with a rare ability to invent quirky but believable characters. Here we find a wedding reception unfolding in a seedy building that used to be a strip club, and this provides the world’s tackiest wedding theme. All the women—including the bride—are supposed to dress to look “hot.” The groom’s family, a more conservative, scholarly bunch, are less than delighted, but they bear it stoically, till someone finds a dead guest in the loo. The bride—already turned bridezilla–is just undone. How could someone ruin her big day like this? How thoughtless. They should have killed that woman somewhere else. Or maybe on a different day. 

This series never fails to delight me. Once again, Detective Milo Sturgis gets the call; once again, his best pal Alex is tapped to analyze a young guest, and from there he becomes further involved in the case. 

There have been other books in the series that pushed this improbable situation too far, with Alex the doctor donning a Kevlar vest to go chase and apprehend bad guys with Milo. This time I find Alex’s involvement much more believable. On the one hand, he still does things that doctors advising cops never do, but limiting Alex’s participation to interviews held either in his office or at the police station wouldn’t make for good fiction. All we want is to believe. Kellerman helps us along by creating a strong friendship bond that makes Milo and Alex want to work together, and that’s coupled with Milo’s unpopularity among his colleagues due to the fact that he’s gay. Nobody else wants to get in the car and go places with Milo, and Alex does; and after all, the police do employ him, so it’s not like some random civilian is partnered with Milo. I thought this was finessed nicely this time around. 

Kellerman always writes strong dialogue that includes some very funny bits here and there, and the pages turn rapidly. It’s a lot of fun to read, and if I hadn’t been able to get the galley for this one, I’d have hunted it down later at the library rather than miss out. 

Highly recommended for fans of the genre.