Library Journal - Audio
10/01/2022
Patterson and Paetro are still going strong with this 22nd installment (following 21st Birthday) in the "Women's Murder Club" series. San Francisco homicide detective Lindsay Boxer is trying to stop a large drug and gun shipment from entering the United States from Mexico. Meanwhile, her journalist friend and member of the Club, Cindy Thomas, is kidnapped and beaten by criminals who want information about Lindsay. As the action heats up, police find corpses whose lips have been stapled together and "You talk, you die" written on their foreheads. In addition to the crime/mystery aspect of the novel, Patterson and Paetro explore the relationship between Lindsay and her husband, Joe, who is also working the case for the FBI. Lindsay faces a difficult choice—should she leave the case with Joe and go home to her young daughter, or stay and take down the gun-running and drug operation? Award-winning narrator January LaVoy employs her vocal skills to create distinct and memorable characterizations. Especially noteworthy is Lindsay's daughter, who is heartbreaking as she pleads for her mother to stay home. VERDICT This expertly narrated audio is a fast and entertaining listen. A solid installment in this ever-popular series.—Ilka Gordon
From the Publisher
The women characters are serious, strong, and admirable. Enjoyable storytelling by two masters of the craft.”—Kirkus Reviews
“James Patterson’s 22 Seconds is this summer’s must-read crime thriller—here’s why: The newest book in the series is the best of them all."—Woman's World
Library Journal
12/01/2021
In a series starter from the ever-popular Armstrong, homicide detective Mallory is in 2019 Edinburgh when she experiences A Rip Through Time and winds up in one of the city's alleyways in 1869, inhabiting the body of strangled-if-not-quite-dead housemaid Catriona Thomson and soon hunting for a killer (50,000-copy first printing). In Atherton's Aunt Dimity and the Enchanted Cottage, the redoubtable sleuth and her English-village neighbors fail in their attempt to befriend standoffish newcomer Crispin Windle until they discover the ruins of a Victorian woolen mill—and the graves of children who worked there, whom they seek to identify (30,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for July 2021). In Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride, crusty but beloved widow Nonna Maria—who lives on the isle of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples and was inspired by the No. 1 New York Times best-selling Carcaterra's grandmother—intervenes when a young bride-to-be declares that she's afraid of her fiancé. In Haines's Lady of Bones, Mississippi-based Sarah Booth Delaney of the Delaney Detective Agency is attending a party alit with jack-o-lanterns when she's approached by a woman seeking her vanished daughter, who has been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans every Halloween for the last five years (40,000-copy first printing). The internationally best-selling author of the "Dark Iceland" and "Hulda" series, Jónasson sets his new standalone during an Icelandic blizzard, with four frantic friends sheltering in an abandoned hunting lodge and facing a reignited tragedy that likely makes them wish they were all Outside (50,000-copy first printing). In Klingborg's Wild Prey, Inspector Lu Fei of the Chinese Police travels to a remote region of Myanmar to find a missing 15-year-old girl in a case involving the illegal trafficking of exotic animals (50,000-copy first printing). In Robert B. Parker's Revenge Tour, Lupica assigns PI Sunny Randall the thankless task of investigating actress friend Melanie Joan Hall when Melanie's manager turns up dead, her bank account looks to be wiped out, and details of her past suddenly seem more imagined than real. In Paretsky's Overboard, a seriously injured teenage girl discovered by V.I. Warshawski on Lake Michigan's rocky shore subsequently vanishes from the hospital, and the iconic detective must chase down a monstrous conspiracy with pandemic-ridden Chicago as backdrop (100,000-copy first printing). Pursuing a massive drugs-and-weapons shipment being shepherded across the U.S.-Mexican border by former cops with the warning "You talk, you die" written on their bodies, Patterson/Paetro stalwart Sgt. Lindsay Boxer suddenly has 22 Seconds to decide what her fate will be. Second in the new series from librarian Weaver, who launched her writing career with the delightful Amory Ames mysteries, The Key to Deceit has breaker-and-enterer Ellie McDonnell again approached by stuffed-shirt good-guy Major Ramsey in World War II London: he wants her to discover which side the female spy found bobbing in the Thames was on (40,000-copy first printing).
