Review by New York Times Review
Taryn's target, a rival senator named Porter Smalls, hires Lucas to keep him alive, but as an extreme right-winger, his enemies are legion. The designated hit man, Jack Parrish, has his own adversaries, including a colleague he shafted when they both worked for the C.I.A. and an Army colonel who watched him steal military equipment and sell it to outside contractors. Sadly, for readers hoping someone will succeed in bumping off obnoxious Senator Smalls, it's his lover who dies in a suspicious auto accident. The political angle adds more bile to Taryn's plan to crush Lucas, who's determined to unmask her as the villain she is. But the senator herself acknowledges Lucas's adversarial strength. "He is intelligent and he is dangerous," she admits. "When I say dangerous, I mean a killer." She's right about that. Sandford has been working on Lucas for more than two dozen books, and by now Lucas can handle just about anything, including a group of bad-apple mercenaries. He's a hero for these perilous times, a man's man who can take on three big brutes at once and isn't afraid to wear pink. "I HAVE SKILLS that are dormant, rusty, but not forgotten," acknowledges the hired assassin who goes by the name Columbus in Derek Haas's thrillers. THE WAY I DIE (Pegasus Crime, $25.95) finds this enigmatic protagonist in northern Michigan, on Mackinac Island, preparing to eradicate a predatory schoolteacher before the man can pounce on the teenage girls in his care. But in a disturbingly funny plot turn, another pupil takes the initiative and heads off this human raptor. "She has the disposition of some of the greatest killers I know - razor-sharp wit buried inside a forgettable package," Columbus (who's calling himself Copeland these days) observes of short, chubby, nearsighted Meghan, whom he might consider training in his own profession. That memorable scene introduces a plot that takes this self-exiled assassin to the Pacific Northwest to protect a software inventor named Matthew Boone from being eliminated by persons or governments unknown. The face-recognition program Boone designed sounds fascinating, but there's no time to linger on the particulars when Columbus is stocking up on the latest weaponry and getting ready to face a killer as cool as he is. MURDER IN THE RANKS of high society provides heady entertainment for the servants who toil in obscurity in A DEATH OF NO IMPORTANCE (Minotaur, $24.99), a lively upstairs/downstairs mystery by Mariah Fredericks set in New York City in 1910. Jane Prescott, a smart and sensible lady's maid in service to the nouveau riche Benchley family, has a front-row seat for the mischief that ensues when pretty, vapid Charlotte Benchley rises above her station and becomes romantically entwined with a rich nitwit ne'er-dowell, Robert Norris Newsome Jr. When Norrie is murdered on the night their engagement is to be announced, Charlotte becomes a suspect and only Jane seems inclined to clear the silly girl's good name. The murder mystery becomes entangled, at times awkwardly, with larger social issues like unionism, anarchism and the women's suffrage movement. But the scenes that work best feature oblivious upper-crust swells, dancing while the victims of a terrible mine disaster lie moldering in their graves. Not even the most disciplined author can write a novel set in France without salivating over the local cuisine. In Sorcha McDonagh's translation of the pseudonymous Jean-Luc Bannalec's enchanting THE FLEUR DE SEL MURDERS (Minotaur, $24.99), Commissaire Georges Dupin ponders the disappearance of a crusading investigative reporter named Lilou Breval while contemplating a meal of pan-fried Breton sole, a specialty, "along with langoustines, prawns, scallops, delicious sea bass, and squid," of the port of Le Croisic. In the nearby salt-producing region, an elaborate system of canals and pools yields a crop that's been called White Gold. But fierce global competition has taken its toll, and Dupin suspects the pools are currently being used for something more sinister than processing salt. Ancient legends impart a pleasing frisson to his sleuthing ("I had warned you about walking through the salt marshes at night or early in the morning"), and he learns that this mineral isn't as ordinary as it seems. MARILYN STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 6, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
The title of YA novelist Fredericks' first book for adults suggests the theme of its intricate historical mystery and pointed commentary on human nature. In 1910, for New York's wealthiest citizens the New York 400 who hold the city's purse strings, the sad truth is that only some lives are important. At the same time, disagreeing anarchists plot violent revolution to force changes in working conditions, crime, and poverty. Deftly woven around these issues is the murder of a playboy, Norrie Newsome, whose family is one of the 400 and whose murderer may be one of the two women he had promised to marry. The story is told through the first-person narration of lady's maid Jane Prescott, perfectly positioned to observe the very rich. The murder plot unspools against the vividly evoked background of a horrific mine disaster, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and the growing campaign for women's rights. Readers can enjoy a similarly down-to-earth and quick-witted heroine in Rosemary Simpson's puzzler What the Dead Leave Behind (2017) and the same wealthy cesspools of greed in Victoria Thompson's Murder in the Bowery (2017).--Baker, Jen Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
YA author Fredericks (Season of the Witch) makes her adult debut with a sparkling mystery set in 1910 Manhattan. Lady's maid Jane Prescott works for the Benchleys, who have the money but not the sophistication to be part of elite society. When the Benchleys' daughter Charlotte falls for Robert "Norrie" Newsome, the playboy heir to a mining fortune, drama ensues. At the Christmas Eve ball Norrie's parents reluctantly hold to announce his engagement to Charlotte, he's found dead, his eyes gouged out. Charlotte, the young woman Norrie jilted when he took up with her, and their families all have motives, as do local anarchists with a history of violent protest and the families of those killed in a recent Newsome mine disaster. Concerned for her employers, Jane looks into the murder with help from an attractive reporter and a chemist knowledgeable about emerging forensic techniques. The novel's voice, plotting, pace, characterization, and historical background are all expertly crafted, while the resolution-which feels both surprising and convincing-will leave readers hungry for more. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Years after Jane Prescott joined the wealthy but parvenu Benchley family as maid to the two daughters, she recalls the 1910 crime that made all the New York papers. Younger daughter Charlotte had flung herself at notorious playboy Norrie Newsome, heir to the Newsome fortune. On Christmas Eve, before the announcement of their engagement, Jane finds Norrie's body in the library. As the scandal sheets waver between suspecting anarchists or Charlotte, the observant Jane teams up with a reporter to uncover other suspects. Fredericks's (The Girl in the Park) first adult mystery is a richly detailed historical that addresses the social issues and class inequities of the early 20th century. Jane is an appealing amateur sleuth, an orphan exposed to the excesses of the wealthy while remaining friends with union organizers and anarchists. VERDICT With its vivid depiction of contrasting worlds this series debut should appeal to readers of Alyssa Maxwell's "Gilded Age" historical mysteries.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN © Copyright 2018. 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.
