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FLIP YOUR WIG
A historically rich mystery with a delectable noir touch.
In this 1960s-set thriller, a series of murders unfolds before an upcoming Beatles concert in San Francisco.
With Beatlemania taking over the world, the English rock band has a concert lined up in California. San Franciscans are in a frenzy, though some protest the group for John Lennon’s assertion that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus. Inspectors Henry Nash and Ross Belcher have other priorities, namely the bloody body lying on an apartment couch. The victim, Danny Gomez, was the “axeman” for a rock act set to open for the Beatles. The investigation leads the inspectors to a handful of musicians who steal songs and bootleg records. The pair moreover question offbeat locals, such as hippies dropping LSD, which, in ’66, is still legal. But things quickly turn dangerous, as someone fires shots at Nash during an interview, and a few people the inspectors are looking for or have spoken with turn up dead. Closing this thorny case won’t be easy, especially as cops anticipate a riot during the “Beatles Go Home” dance concert—on the same night that the British rock stars are performing. Chaney masterfully incorporates the real-world setting into the tale. Racial unrest, for one, is palpable, from the Black community protests against poverty and police harassment to residual World War II–fueled hatred of Japanese people. This provides the backdrop for a noirish detective story complete with copious deception and dishy one-liners: “Pull my other leg, it’s got bells on,” Belcher tells a man spinning tales. Along with a few genuinely unexpected deaths, memorable scenes include a rock-inspired assault. The inspectors fight off a suspect wielding a plugged-in guitar, as the amplifier belts “electric screams.” Nash, though not the most likable hero, faces an unusual hurdle, as his senses-blending synesthesia sometimes proves a hindrance. He guides the increasingly convoluted plot to a final-act exposition that, while dizzying, effectively wraps up the crime-riddled narrative.
A historically rich mystery with a delectable noir touch.Pub Date: July 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73754-061-8
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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PERSPECTIVES
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CLOSE TO DEATH
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.
What begins as a decorous whodunit set in a gated community on the River Thames turns out to be another metafictional romp for mystery writer Anthony Horowitz and his frequent collaborator, ex-DI Daniel Hawthorne.
Everyone in Riverview Close hates Giles Kenworthy, an entitled hedge fund manager who bought Riverview Lodge from chess grandmaster Adam Strauss when the failure of Adam’s chess-themed TV show forced him and his wife, Teri, to downsize to The Stables at the opposite end of the development. So the surprise when Kenworthy’s wife, retired air hostess Lynda, returns home from an evening out with her French teacher, Jean-François, to find her husband’s dead body is mainly restricted to the manner of his death: He’s been shot through the throat with an arrow. Suspects include—and seem to be limited to—Richmond GP Dr. Tom Beresford and his wife, jewelry designer Gemma; widowed ex-nuns May Winslow and Phyllis Moore; and retired barrister Andrew Pennington, whose name is one of many nods to Agatha Christie. Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan, feeling outside his element, calls in Hawthorne and his old friend John Dudley as consultants, and eventually the case is marked as solved. Five years later, Horowitz, needing to plot and write a new novel on short notice, asks Hawthorne if he can supply enough information about the case to serve as its basis, launching another prickly collaboration in which Hawthorne conceals as much as he reveals. To say more, as usual with this ultrabrainy series, would spoil the string of surprises the real-life author has planted like so many explosive devices.
Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780063305649
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
DESERT STAR
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.
A snap of the yo-yo string yanks Harry Bosch out of retirement yet again.
Los Angeles Councilman Jake Pearlman has resurrected the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit in order to reopen the case of his kid sister, Sarah, whose 1994 murder was instantly eclipsed in the press by the O.J. Simpson case when it broke a day later. Since not even a councilor can reconstitute a police unit for a single favored case, Det. Renée Ballard and her mostly volunteer (read: unpaid) crew are expected to reopen some other cold cases as well, giving Bosch a fresh opportunity to gather evidence against Finbar McShane, the crooked manager he’s convinced executed industrial contractor Stephen Gallagher, his wife, and their two children in 2013 and buried them in a single desert grave. The case has haunted Bosch more than any other he failed to close, and he’s fine to work the Pearlman homicide if it’ll give him another crack at McShane. As it turns out, the Pearlman case is considerably more interesting—partly because the break that leads the unit to a surprising new suspect turns out to be both fraught and misleading, partly because identifying the killer is only the beginning of Bosch’s problems. The windup of the Gallagher murders, a testament to sweating every detail and following every lead wherever it goes, is more heartfelt but less wily and dramatic. Fans of the aging detective who fear that he might be mellowing will be happy to hear that “putting him on a team did not make him a team player.”
Not the best of Connelly’s procedurals, but nobody else does them better than his second-best.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-48565-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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