Review by New York Times Review
OPEN LET ME DIE IN HIS FOOTSTEPS (Dutton, $26.95) anywhere and Lori Roy's melodious voice will float off the page, calling your attention to the way honeybees are soothed into a kind of stupor by the scent of lavender, or instructing you in the wisdom of hanging milk snakes by the front door to keep away evil. And when the teller of this Southern Gothic yarn really wants to engage your mind, her insinuating voice will direct you to the last public hanging held in the United States and a lingering curse on the Kentucky farming town that hosted the spectacle in the early dawn of a cold, damp day in 1936. Family feuds are nurtured for generations in these parts, and there's been bad blood between the Baines and the Hollerans ever since Juna Crowley, of the Holleran clan, accused one of the seven Baine brothers of rape, a hanging offense in 1936. Roy recounts the execution itself in disturbing detail, but being more attentive to the social dynamics that led up to it, she uses a split-focus narrative to trace the original murderous grudge back to its roots. Like her grandmother and her Aunt Juna, Annie Holleran is touched with "the know-how" to foresee future events. In 1952, Annie is exactly midway between the ages of 15 and 16, and like all girls at that very special age, she'll peer down a well at midnight, hoping to see the reflection of her intended husband. But being a rebellious girl with a will of her own, Annie is determined to use the well on forbidden Baine property. Lest anyone think this is turning into a sweet coming-of-age story, Annie's younger sister beats her to the well, effectively stealing her husband. Caught up in their quarrel, the sisters practically stumble over the body of old Mrs. Baine, who lived alone on the farm after driving off her sons. All the mysteries bedeviling Annie in 1952 are gradually revealed in spellbinding flashbacks to 1936, when her unhappy mother and her notorious aunt committed sins that will haunt their descendants. This Depression-era story is a sad one, written in every shade of Gothic black. But its true colors emerge in the rich textures of the narrative, and in the music of that voice, as hypnotic as the scent coming off a field of lavender. WE'LL NEVER KNOW what the first three days on the Beautiful Dreamer were like, but when Sarah Lotz's satirical scream of a novel, DAY FOUR (Little, Brown, $26), opens, the cruise ship is figuratively dead on course for the Bermuda Triangle. A fire has broken out in the engine room, and the chief engineer is too badly burned to stay at his post. For some mysterious reason, the ship's S O S messages have gone unanswered, and by Day 5, the ship has lost all power, and a raging norovirus is taking its toll on the passengers. And what an unlovely group they are: the happy-slappy Australian cruise director; two friends who have made a suicide pact; a "sick, manipulative con artist" who develops true psychic abilities; and assorted ghosts. Oh, and a killer named Gary. If this tub ever makes it back to Miami, sign me up for the next cruise. "I'D BE DELIGHTED," replies John Delahunt, a student at Trinity College, when the young socialite Helen Stokes asks him to accompany her to a hanging. That colorful street entertainment is one of many striking set pieces in THE CONVICTIONS OF JOHN DELAHUNT (Pegasus, $24.95), a remarkable first novel that Andrew Hughes has set in 1840s Dublin and based on crimes of that period. The lovely Helen seems the perfect mate for Delahunt, who was executed, for killing a little boy, in full view of a mob of 10,000 souls in 1842. Hughes challenges historical accounts of Delahunt's infamous career with an incisive portrait of an impoverished scholar lured into becoming a paid police informant. Urged by his corrupt handlers to bring them murderers (the big money is always in murder), he starts framing innocent people and then, in desperation, begins committing crimes himself. At once a close character study and a sweeping panorama of the era of "dissectionists" who buy bodies for medical research and the "resurrectionists" who dig them up, this fascinating book is a stirring work of fiction and a perceptive chapter in Ireland's social history. ELOUISE (LOU) NORTON, in Rachel Howzell Hall's SKIES OF ASH (Forge/Tom Doherty, $25.99), doesn't talk like most detectives in police procedurals. She curses and complains like all the other cops on the L.A.P.D. homicide squad, but her voice has a coarse, raggedy edge that, as a not-so-tough black woman in a tough man's nasty job, she's acquired the hard way. Lou doesn't exactly see things the same way her colleagues do, either, especially her young, "white boy" partner from Colorado. On one of those mornings when Lou and her sexy but unfaithful husband are trying to decide whether they want to start a fight, Lou is called to an arson fire, with casualties, in Baldwin Hills. On her way to the scene, she drives through the rough streets of her bullet-scarred old neighborhood, checking out the "stumbling crackheads,... gangbanging drug dealers,... storefront payday check-advance scams," as well as the liquor store where her sister was murdered. Lou's history is wrapped up in this neighborhood, and because she lugs around her personal baggage wherever she goes, it both drags her down and makes her a formidable fighter - someone you want on your side.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 21, 2015]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Hall's emotionally laden second outing for L.A. homicide detective Elouise "Lou" Norton (after 2014's Land of Shadows), Lou investigates a suspicious house fire that killed Juliet Chatman and her two kids, eight-year-old Chloe and 12-year-old Cody. Christopher Chatman, Juliet's husband, who arrived when the house was in flames, was injured trying to save them. The Chatmans appear to have been an ideal family, but Lou soon learns otherwise: Juliet had serious health concerns and Christopher was stumbling in his career as a commodities broker. Autopsies reveal that all three victims had been drugged, suggesting murder. Lou is sure that Christopher is behind the killings, but the Chatmans' best friends-insurance attorney Ben Oliver, and his lawyer wife, Sarah-believe Christopher is innocent. Meanwhile, Lou has to fight through her own problems with her unfaithful husband, Greg. This soap opera of a mystery builds to a startling conclusion. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Still reeling from the emotional discovery of her sister Victoria's long-buried remains and unmasking her killer in 2014's Land of Shadows, LAPD Det. Elouise "Lou" Norton welcomes the distraction of a big case. She gets that and more when a house fire kills Juliet Chatman and her two children, 12-year-old Cody and eight-year-old Chloe. Husband Christopher, allegedly at work during the early morning blaze, arrives home as firefighters try to extinguish the flames and must be physically restrained. Lou immediately suspects Christopher, though her new partner, Colin Taggart, argues that there's little evidence to support her theory. As Lou peels back the layers of the Chatmans' seemingly perfect life, the veneer of happiness quickly falls away: financial woes loomed large; -Juliet was miserable, possibly even suicidal; and Cody had a penchant for bullying and setting fires. Most of the Chatmans' friends staunchly believe the fire was an accident, but Lou knows in her bones it was murder. VERDICT The genre needs more strong, black female heroines like Lou, and even when the plot slides into soap-opera territory in places, Hall's take-no-prisoners lead keeps readers on their toes. This is a woman you'd want on your side. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When a house goes up in flames in the dead of the night with a woman and her two children inside, is it accident or murder?Good thing that African-American homicide detective Elouise "Lou" Norton is a very clever cop with deep ties in her community that will serve her well in her new case. It's up to her and her annoying white LAPD partner, Colin Taggert, to determine whether the fire that killed Juliet Chatman and her children, Cody and Chloe, was meant to cover up a murder. The fire was definitely arson. Hostile, troubled Cody had been setting a lot of fires lately, but autopsies revealed that both Juliet and the children had Valium in their systems, and Juliet had advanced ovarian cancer. Why did Juliet have a gun clutched in her hand and a car packed with suitcases for her and the children? And what to make of her garbled 911 call about someone killing her? Juliet's husband, Christopher, a commodities broker who works odd hours, left for work, returned during the fire, and had to be tackled by the firemen to keep him outside. Lou recently took back her own cheating husband, Greghandsome, wealthy, and deeply untrustworthyafter the body of her sister, murdered long ago, was finally found (Land of Shadows, 2014). Her partner and her boss wonder if her marital problems are coloring her perception of Christopher, an inveterate liar. Christopher's neighbor and best friend, Ben Oliver, an insurance lawyer whom Christopher recently tapped for a loan, is immediately on the scene. Even if Juliet and Christopher have been big spenders, she can't imagine how they went through the $3 million his parents left him. Every day brings unsettling discoveries, more questions, and further complications that force Lou to confront her own worst fears. Hall outdoes her stellar debut in an exploration of vile secrets that pays homage to that earlier master of complex California homicide, Raymond Chandler. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
