Review by New York Times Review
STARRING IN A Jeffery Deaver thriller isn't all it's cracked up to be. Despite their sterling reputations, his sleuths are in constant danger of being outclassed by their preternaturally cunning adversaries. This is what happens in SOLITUDE CREEK (Grand Central, $28) when Kathryn Dance, an agent with the California Bureau of Investigation, takes on Antioch March, a newfangled killer who likes to scare people into causing their own deaths. "He plays with perceptions, sensations, panic," Dance discovers, leaving the actual killing to his victims themselves. A small, contained fire outside the Solitude Creek roadhouse, a tractor-trailer blocking the exit doors and a single phone call to raise the false alarm - that's all it takes for 200 people to turn on one another in an "animal frenzy" to get out of the club. Marveling at the deadly efficiency of his own work, the man who caused this chaos reflects on how "people could erase a million years of evolution in seconds." This crafty fiend is partial to witty "event" homicides like the book party at the Bay View hall that he orchestrates into a scene of mass hysteria, with guests crashing through windows and hurling themselves into the sea. But he'll also indulge in more modest entertainments, finding a nice viewing spot on a cliff at Monterey Bay and waiting for unwary tourists to venture too far out on the rocks, only to be swept away by a churning wave. Dance manages to deflect some of March's homicidal ambitions, but although he calls her "the Great Strategist," her tactics are nowhere near as ingenious (or as droll) as his own machinations. While Dance may not be able to compete with a flamboyant showoff like March, she's excellent as the calm but constantly moving right hand that Deaver uses to distract us from what his busy left hand is doing. Applying classic principles of indirection, he gives her an important organized-crime case to keep track of, along with single-mother headaches caused by her 10-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son, who have picked this moment to act out their growing pains. Mom needs all her wits about her right now if she hopes to foil one of Deaver's most diabolical villains. JUST WHEN YOU think you've got her all figured out, Joyce Carol Oates sneaks up from behind and confounds you yet again. She does it with a wicked flourish in JACK OF SPADES (Mysterious Press, $24), a "tale of suspense" written in the voice of Andrew J. Rush, an author of "best-selling mystery-suspense novels with a touch of the macabre," who is proud to be known as "the gentleman's Stephen King." Oates gives him a nice wife, a nice family, a nice house in the New Jersey suburbs and the carefully modulated accents of an arrogant stuffed shirt. That changes drastically when he speaks in the more assertive voice of his pseudonymous alter ego, Jack of Spades, who furtively writes "cruder, more visceral, more frankly horrific" potboilers that earn little money and attract an unstable fan base, but gratify a deeply felt need. Oates writes sparingly about the trauma that gave birth to the now rampaging Jack. It's only when Rush is sued for plagiarism by an unknown author that his repressed guilt flares up - irrational, no doubt, but not unfamiliar to writers who "steal" the identities of living people as they give birth to characters of their own creation, including monsters like Jack. A COZY VILLAGE mystery needn't be quaint, and in his blissful novels about Bruno Courrèges, the police chief in the provincial French town of St. Denis, in the Dordogne, Martin Walker usually manages to balance the idyllic charms of his fictional village with substantive issues of concern to Bruno's neighbors. But he seems to have lost that sense of balance in THE CHILDREN RETURN (Knopf, $24.95), with an overstuffed political plot about killers from a radical mosque in Toulouse sent to find "the Engineer," an autistic local Muslim boy with a talent for bomb making. That should be enough excitement for his little town, but Walker also digs into the history of Vichy France for a subplot about Jewish children given sanctuary in St. Denis during World War II. It's time for the grape harvest in this lush valley, but Bruno is far too busy chasing terrorists to devote much time to food and drink and the troubled history of this beautiful region. THE NECESSARY DEATH OF LEWIS WINTER (Mulholland, paper, $15), the first book in Malcolm Mackay's brutal but elegantly constructed Glasgow Trilogy, features a gifted young hit man named Calum MacLean, who is hired by a gangland boss to fill in while his main gunman, Frank MacLeod, recovers from hip replacement surgery. Frank is on his feet again in the second book, how a gunman says GOODBYE (Mulholland, paper, $15), and very happy to be working again. ("Sunshine retirement is for other people. He wants the rain of Glasgow. The tension of the job. The thrill of it. That's his life. Oh, it's so good to be back.") But in THE SUDDEN ARRIVAL OF VIOLENCE (Mulholland, paper, $15) we return to Calum as he weighs the odds of getting out of the profession - alive, that is. Mackay's novels aren't easy to read. He writes short, brisk sentences, blunt and direct, almost clinical. "This isn't a gentleman's club, after all," we're told. "This is business." You either like his affectless style or you don't. I do.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 26, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
California Bureau of Investigation body-language expert Kathryn Dance appears to have royally screwed up, misreading a suspect's behavior and letting a dangerous criminal escape justice. Shifted to a new assignment, she shoehorns her way into a case involving a fatal stampede in a nightclub. The latest Dance thriller is full of Deaver's trademark plot twists, including one at the end that makes you rethink most of what you've just read. Dance might not be quite as compelling a character as Deaver's other series hero, quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, but with each book, she gains ground. A further reminder that Deaver is a must for mystery readers looking for devilishly curlycued plots.--Pitt, David Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Numerous surprises are in store for Kathryn Dance (and the reader) in bestseller Deaver's stellar fourth novel featuring the California Bureau of Investigation kinesics expert (after 2012's XO). As part of Operation Pipeline, which is aimed at stopping the drug and gun transportation network headed by gangbanger Rodrigo Guzman, Dance lets a suspect escape during an interview and winds up assigned to the CBI's Civil Division. Working with Civ-Div, she discovers that a false fire alarm at a Monterey Bay area club, Solitude Creek, where three patrons died in the rush toward blocked exits, was the work of elusive killer Antioch March. March has other panic-inducing attacks planned, and Dance leads an investigative effort while continuing to pursue the Guzman connection without the knowledge of her boss, Charles Overby. In addition, Dance and her colleagues continue to fight a frustrating battle against contraband crossing the porous Mexico-U.S. border. Deaver's meaty thrillers are as good as they come. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In her fourth outing (after XO), Kathryn Dance, a California Bureau of Investigation agent and a body and language expert, is demoted to the Civil Division after a mix-up on a drug-related case. Tasked with investigating boring things such as failing to follow regulations, she is assigned a case involving a fatal stampede at a roadhouse. On the surface, it seems that the fire in the club caused the concertgoers to panic, but because she can't help herself, Kathryn does more than just make sure the paperwork was in order. She begins to ask questions and pursue witnesses and discovers that the stampede may have been caused intentionally by a man who turns people's fears into weapons. VERDICT Deaver once again satisfies with this exciting entry. His fans won't be disappointed, and readers looking for a new thriller series will enjoy making Kathryn's acquaintance. [See Prepub Alert, 11/3/14.]-Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH © 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
Someone yells fire in a crowded Monterey concert venue, setting off the latest cat-and-mouse game for kinesics expert Kathryn Dance and her elusive quarry. Dance, the human lie detector, wouldn't have been pulled into the case at all if her failure to pick up the cues that marked landscaper Joaquin Serrano, a potential witness against the fearsome gangbanger Guzman, as a killer himself hadn't gotten her kicked off the Guzman Connection task force and exiled to the Civil Division, which doesn't allow her to carry a weapon or make arrests. Once settled into the Civ-Div, however unhappily, she gets her teeth into the fatal fire at aging hippie Sam Cohen's popular concert site. Or rather, the fatal nonfire, since reports of a blaze were greatly exaggerated in order to induce the crowd to crush each other, sometimes fatally, as they swarmed the fire exits, which had been strategically blocked. The noncalamity-turned-calamitous is only the first act for Antioch March, whose online nonprofit, Hand to Heart, conceals a dark secret. As Dance puts it: "He starts panics. And he's real good at it." As she sweats to anticipate the unknown terrorist's next move, March naturally takes a personal interest in her interventions, becomes infatuated with her, and waxes more and more determined to show her his best stuff. Fans of Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme tales (The Skin Collector, 2014, etc.) will anticipate a long string of surprises, but this time Deaver takes the edge off his customary overgenerous lan, and most of his few lightning bolts land with a thud. Dance's fourth appearance (XO, 2012, etc.) shows her still-creaky skill setshe can't tell when her 12-year-old is lying to herin search of a plot that can effectively harness her putative gifts. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
