Review by New York Times Review
HOW DO YOU soften up a tough-guy hero anyway? The conventional approach is to make him a widowed or divorced dad who pines for his little girl. That, or give him some icky disease. With these and other clichés so close to hand, it's actually refreshing to pick up THE SECOND GIRL (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $26), a sweaty crime novel by the veteran police detective David Swinson, and come across a protagonist with a cocaine addiction. Frank Marr's drug habit goes to explain why, other than the obligatory "attitude problem," he was forced into early retirement from the Washington, D.C., police department and now works as a private investigator for a lawyer he's sweet on. It also explains why Marr is staking out a drug house in a nasty part of town - not to put the dealers out of business, but to steal their product. Imagine his surprise when he finally makes his move and discovers Amanda, a bruised and brainwashed 16-year-old from Virginia chained up in the bathroom. Like other impressionable teenagers seduced by flashy dealers, Amanda was being groomed for work in a brothel, and when word goes out about her rescue, Marr finds his services in demand by parents of other missing girls. Aside from his drug dependency, Marr's real secret is that he's a big old softy. Although brutal, even murderous, when dealing with pimps and drug dealers, on some sad cases, this decent, complicated man feels bad taking a client's money. Despite a pledge to steer clear of cases involving children, which often end badly, he agrees to look for another runaway. But this girl, Miriam Gregory, has taken to her new life and fights like a pro from being rescued. "After this job, I'm done with teenagers," Marr swears, especially "suburban white girls on crack." If there's any comfort in managing a drug habit, being outwitted by teenage girls and trying not to kill people, it's knowing that, to old friends on the force, "you'll always be one of us." WE'RE OFF TO the rugged northern coast of Maine in boar island (Minotaur, $26.99), by Nevada Barr, who sets all her mysteries amid the natural grandeur of our national parks. Anna Pigeon, the weathered law-enforcement park ranger who gives this long-running series its sturdy backbone, has been recalled from Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and temporarily assigned to the assorted land areas that make up Acadia. This places her in the middle of the raging "lobster wars," a territorial dispute among Maine fishermen angling for survival in their dwindling industry. As usual in this series, the most vivid scenes occur outdoors. An eerie underwater sequence captures the weighted silence in which a solitary lobster poacher goes night diving. A search by water for a girl and her dog, lost on a fogbound coast, casts another beautiful setting in a dangerous light. But this time out, the bond between Anna and nature seems to have frayed, strained by the author's attempt to draw too many other characters into this private world. Although Barr effectively delves into virgin territory by exploring the mind of a murderer, the gaggle of Colorado friends who followed Anna east are too much baggage for someone who works best when she works alone. LOST AND GONE FOREVER (Putnam, $27) is a hoot. The latest entry in Alex Grecian's lurid series of Victorian melodramas expands on the author's obsessive interest in Jack the Ripper with another potboiler in which Saucy Jack is alive and well and still tormenting Inspector Walter Day of Scotland Yard's elite new Murder Squad. The language is ripe, if not entirely in period, and the plot, which turns on the fate of the missing Day, is a hot mess. But Grecian introduces a fantastically devilish pair of bounty hunters who call themselves Mr. and Mrs. Parker ("As long as he remained alert, Mrs. Parker posed no danger to him," according to the besotted Mr. Parker) and creates some extravagantly overwritten scenes in which a majestic emporium called Plumm's is ceremoniously erected and oh-so-carelessly destroyed. Although Jack appears to have dispatched the Parkers at the end, the resurrection of those Grand Guignol figures shouldn't be a problem for an inspired fabulist like Grecian. IN SEVEN DAYS DEAD (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, $25.99), another atmospheric mystery by the Canadian author John Farrow, the wild and windswept island of Grand Manan proves an invigorating holiday spot - provided visitors survive the treacherous crossing over the Bay of Fundy. Inspector Émile Cinq-Mars, a retired detective from the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal, happens to be here on vacation on the stormy night that Alfred Orrock dies. "Boss and owner of everything" on the island, according to those who loathed the man, this tinpot despot didn't deserve his peaceful death, any more than he deserved the loyalty of his daughter, Madeleine, or the islanders who depended on him for survival. Farrow is an authoritative writer who creates characters with depth and plots that say something about them. (Even a minor character like a burnt-out officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police makes a strong impression on his "do-or-die posting.") But the author's true forte is setting, especially rock-cliff islands lashed by storms, buffeted by winds and clinging to generational secrets that poison the lives of people who keep reminding one another to "keep your knives sharp."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 12, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Anna Pigeon is asked to fill in for the chief ranger at Acadia National Park in Maine, but before she can leave, her best friend Heath's daughter, Elizabeth, Anna's goddaughter, attempts suicide. Turns out she's been the victim of cyberbullying taken to the extreme. It slowly comes out that Elizabeth was sexually assaulted by her best friend's father. Anna and Heath, along with Heath's aunt Gwen, decide to get the girl out of town. They take Elizabeth to Maine and stay on Boar Island. As Anna assumes her new role, a lobsterman is murdered in town. While the case is outside of her jurisdiction, Anna still gets caught up in it. Denise, a park ranger, is assigned to drive Anna and is acting hinky. There's a murder attempt on Anna's life, kidnappings, and the cyberbullying evolves into stalking, leading to a hot mess in Acadia and a real page-turner. Barr's fans will be happy with this nineteenth entry in the long-running and consistently popular series.--Alesi, Stacy Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In bestseller Barr's fast-paced but sometimes predictable 19th Anna Pigeon novel (after 2014's Destroyer Angel), the National Park Service ranger accepts a short-term assignment in Maine's Acadia National Park. She's joined by her friend Heath Jarrod, Heath's spry Aunt Gwen Littleton, and 16-year-old Elizabeth, Heath's adopted daughter and Anna's goddaughter, who has been targeted by a vicious cyberstalker at home in Boulder, Colo. They soon realize that the stalker has followed Elizabeth to Maine, but because of jurisdictional issues and vague laws, the local police can do little. Meanwhile, Anna becomes involved in a murder investigation that pits her against a pathologically cunning, increasingly unstable adversary. Barr excels at conveying the often harsh realities faced by lobstermen and their families, though her depiction of the antagonist is less compelling and fails to achieve nuance or dimension. Still, readers looking for a lively escape in a rugged, brutal, but magnificent landscape should find plenty to enjoy. 150,000 first printing; author tour. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Anna's temporary assignment as acting chief ranger at Maine's Acadia National Park offers a perfect opportunity for her friends Heath and Gwen to tag along, putting some distance between their teenage daughter Elizabeth and the cyberbullying that has made her life in Colorado a nightmare. But additional issues crop up in Maine as Elizabeth's stalker follows her to isolated Boar Island. At the same time, Anna must investigate a murder. Unfortunately, Anna's concern with Elizabeth leaves the goings-on at the park in the backseat. Barbara Rosenblat's usual fine performance creates a strong listening experience. Fans who were disturbed by the violence in previous series installment Destroyer Angel will prefer this book. Verdict Quibbles aside, this is a fine novel. Fans of the series will enjoy. ["As in the previous mysteries, a dramatic landscape is a major presence": LJ 2/15/16 starred review of the Minotaur: St. Martin's hc.]-Janet Martin, Southern Pines P.L., NC © Copyright 2016. 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
Ranger Anna Pigeon, sent from the Rockies to Maine's Acadia National Park for a three-week stint, finds the brief interval more than long enough for another round of murder and assorted skulduggery. It seems like an especially good time to leave Boulder, where 16-year-old Elizabeth, the adopted daughter of Anna's friend Heath Jarrod, has turned withdrawn and suicidal after becoming the victim first of unwanted and wholly inappropriate sexual overtures and then of an unrelenting barrage of cyberstalking and cybershaming. So packing up Heath, Elizabeth, and their dog Wily, Anna heads east just in time to run smack into a bizarre murder plot. Nurse Paulette Duffy, newly reunited with Acadia ranger Denise Castle, the identical twin separated from her for most of their lifetimes, is so convinced that her abusive husband, lobsterman Kurt Duffy, is going to kill her that she decides to strike first, establishing an ironclad alibi while her newfound sister does the dirty work. Denise, whose inability to cover her tracks is magnified by an inherited disease she doesn't know about and a series of comically unlikely coincidences, arouses Anna's suspicions almost instantly and just as quickly decides that "the pigeon" has to go. Lest Elizabeth feel neglected, her tormenter follows her to Acadia and demands a meeting that can't possibly end well. By the time it's all over, Anna will have been kidnapped twice, the second time duct-taped to a babe in arms. After the razor-sharp focus of Destroyer Angel (2014), Barr's latest is a surprisingly hot mess, awash in scattered crimes whose perpetrators' behaviors defy belief. There's not even much about Acadia National Park. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
