Echo

Revenge is served ice-cold during a frigid Chicago winter in Clark's entertaining latest procedural featuring detective Harriet Foster (after Fall). When Brice Collier, a senior at the exclusive Belverton College, dies in an apparent accident, Chicago coroner Olivia Grant links his death to the decades-old murder of Belverton scholarship student Michael James Paget. Though Brice's father, Sebastian, was implicated in Paget's death--the two were classmates at Belverton--the Collier family's copious connections got him off the hook. Now, following up on Olivia's hunch, Foster and her colleagues learn that an anonymous vigilante crew calling itself "Justice" has formed at Belverton to avenge Paget. Foster and her team set out to unmask its members and determine if they're affiliated with the college's mysterious and exclusive Minotaur Society. Meanwhile, Foster receives threatening messages from someone calling themselves "The Voice," who implies they know how Foster's former partner really died and threatens her family. Though Clark doesn't break much new ground, she conjures an evocative wintry atmosphere, and Foster remains an appealingly tenacious heroine. There's enough here to satisfy series fans. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (Dec.)

It's February in Chicago when Detective Harriet Foster is called to Hardwicke House, a mansion and legendary party house that's home to Belverton College's exclusive Minotaur Society. The body of Brice Collier, son of the house's billionaire owner, has been found in a field nearby. An autopsy shows Brice died when alcohol was forced down his throat, perhaps not a surprising death at a college party house. What is a surprise is the connection to a hazing death that occurred at Hardwicke House 30 years earlier. Foster and her partner, Detective Vera Li, suspect that Brice's uncooperative father was involved in the earlier case. Then two more deaths occur that appear to be suicides. While Foster investigates, she's taunted by a voice on the phone. She suspects that voice is connected to the death of her earlier partner, which was ruled a suicide, although Foster has never accepted it. She soon feels that she's wearing herself down investigating two cases with echoes from the past. VERDICT Clark follows Fall with the third in the series featuring a complex Black police officer haunted by multiple violent deaths in her life. Characters are well-developed in this hard-hitting police procedural that examines justice, and who metes it out.--Lesa Holstine

A death outside upscale student lodgings adjoining Belverton College throws new light on an eerily similar fatality 30 years ago. Apart from his immediate family, whose limited means left them powerless against the might of the lordly Colliers, few people mourned Belverton freshman Michael James Paget when he was found drunk and choked in his own vomit outside Hardwicke House, one of the few buildings near the campus not to bear the Collier name. But the discovery of Belverton senior Brice Collier outside Hardwicke House, his half-naked body bearing signs of forcible and fatal intoxication, suggests that someone hasn't forgotten the Paget case. Although Belverton students Shelby Ritter and Hailie Kenton, who found the body, tell a story that doesn't quite add up for Det. Harriet Foster of Chicago Homicide, they're obviously much too young to have been involved in Michael Paget's death. And although Brice's father, Sebastian Collier, can't be bothered to return from Geneva to answer questions or identify the body, his suspected involvement in Mike's decease--which he blandly maintains was an accident--makes him the last person who'd want to kill his wastrel son in revenge. While Harri and her squad scrounge for clues, Clark reveals that Brice was murdered by a cadre of four, headed and bankrolled by Ethan Paget, Mike's kid brother. More interestingly, she hints more and more broadly that Ethan's cohort aren't the only people in the vicinity looking for revenge. By the time Harri claps the cuffs on the very last perp, in fact, you have to wonder if anyone in the Windy City has ever really forgotten about Michael Paget. Not the best entry in this franchise, but fans caught up in all those felonies won't complain. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.