NO MOLASSES IN RHUM | Kirkus Reviews

Lindsay Boxer faces a ton of bother within the newest entry in Patterson and Paetro’s Ladies’s Homicide Membership sequence.

Senior crime reporter Cindy Thomas is writing a biography of Evan Burke, a infamous serial killer who sits in solitary confinement in San Quentin. She’s kidnapped by thugs wanting her to speak about her finest buddy, Lindsay Boxer, who’s an SFPD murder detective and the story’s principal character. San Francisco has a restrictive new gun regulation, and gun-totin’ of us in every single place have their boxer shorts in a twist. A nationwide resistance motion has fashioned—Defenders of the Second—whose motto is “We won’t comply.” They discover it outrageous that the brand new regulation makes it unlawful to personal a gun that may kill 50 folks with a single clip. In the meantime, numerous our bodies present up: A younger lady disappears and is later discovered lifeless in a ditch, and ex-cops are discovered lifeless with their lips stapled shut and “You discuss, you die” written on their foreheads. An inmate is discovered hanged in jail. And “a large however unspecified load of military-style weaponry was en route from Mexico to the Metropolis by the Bay.” In a “irritating, multipronged case,” there’s a harrowing shootout memorialized in a video displaying “twenty-two of the scariest seconds” of Boxer’s life. She’s an interesting sequence hero with loving household and associates, however she could arrive at a crossroads the place she has “to decide on between my work and [my] child lady.” The formulaic story has unmemorable writing, but it surely’s entertaining and properly informed. You in all probability received’t have to fret about the primary characters, who’ve so far survived 21 adventures. Aside from the little lady, you possibly can count on folks to get what they deserve. It is comparatively gentle as crime novels go, however the ladies characters are severe, robust, and admirable.

Satisfying storytelling by two masters of the craft.