WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 53Review_FICTION
safely pass on this one. Agent: Yolande Rochet
de la Valee, Bragelonne (France). (Mar.)
No Stone Unturned
Andrea Kane. Bonnie Meadow, $26.95
(384p) ISBN 978-1-68232-039-6
Forensic Instincts boasts “the most
awesome team members with a crazy
number of skills to go around,” as shown
in bestseller Kane’s entertaining eighth
paranormal thriller centered on the New
York City investigative company (after
2019’s Dead in a Week). When jewelry
designer Fiona McKay finds her antiquities
dealer friend, 79-year-old Rose Flaherty,
lying in a pool of blood on the floor of her
Greenwich Village shop, she turns for help
to her brother Ryan McKay, a technology
genius on the FI team. Rose had been
researching the Celtic designs in a tapestry
belonging to the McKay family. Soon
everyone at FI, including Claire Hedgleigh,
a self-described claircognizant, which
Claire describes “as just inherently knowing
things with no tangible explanation as to
how,” is in on the action, racing around
New York in search of a treasure of historic
importance—one that also draws the
interest of MI5 and the FBI. The stakes rise
when a greedy property developer with ties
to the IRA starts to purse Ryan, Clare, and
the rest of the affable crew. Those who like
cozies with Glocks will have fun. (Mar.)
★ Before Familiar Woods
Ian Pisarcik. Crooked Lane, $26.95 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-64385-295-9
Pisarcik’s outstanding debut begins in
the aftermath of a tragedy. Three years
after teenagers Mathew Fenn and William
Downing died in a burst of violence trig-
gered by heroin and fentanyl, Matthew’s
mother, Ruth, remains shunned by the
townsfolk of North Falls, Vt. Though
everyone in the dying town at least ignores
the flood of
illegal drugs,
Ruth is slowly
coming to terms
with the fact
that she does
deserve personal
blame; she
should have
done more to
protect her son.
Meanwhile, she
meets Milk Raymond, an alienated Afghan
War vet who’s trying to figure out how to
be a father to his son, Daniel, who has been
traumatized by his mother’s addiction.
Then Ruth’s husband vanishes, along with
William’s father. And so Ruth is forced
into an awkward, tentative, altogether
convincing investigation. Familiar land-
scapes become quietly ominous as the
characters set about doing what they
have to do. The action builds toward a
devastating yet mildly hopeful conclusion.
Pisarcik is a writer to watch. Agent: Alec
Shane, Writers House. (Mar.)Two Lives:
Tales of Life, Love & Crime
A Yi, trans. from the Chinese by Alex Woodend.
Flame Tree, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-1-78758-
278-1
Repellent characters and situations fill
the seven tales in the lamentable inaugural
volume of the Stories from China series. In
the title story, Zhou Lingtong, who failed
his college entrance exams multiple times
and whose attempt to become a monk is
rejected, takes out his frustration and rage
on a “classy woman” by raping her. Shortly
after evading arrest, Zhou witnesses twomen beating a “horse-faced” woman. With
no explanation for a shift in his moral
compass, Zhou intervenes, rescuing the
victim, who gives him her phone number
and tells him to call if he’s ever in need.
When he does so, his life is turned around.
Yi’s decision to include a revisionist view
of his sex crime is off-putting, and nothing
in the prose, plot, or characterizations
distinguishes this cryptic story of violence
and unmerited redemption. The other
entries, including one featuring paragraphs
of crossed-out text listing language zones
and a lengthy laundry list of things to buy,
are also likely to result in head-scratching
or boredom. Even fans of amoral leads will
be unimpressed. (Mar.)Danger in the House:
An Alice Ott Mystery
Dusty J. Miller. Levellers, $18 trade paper
(266p) ISBN 978-1-945473-91-3
In Miller’s heartfelt, conscience-raising
fourth and final Alice Ott mystery (after
Danger Underground), a violent windstorm
hits Alice’s home in western Massachusetts.
When, as a result of the subsequent power
loss, a patient at the local hospital dies,
Alice’s nursing assistant friend, RubyStarr,★ Long Range: A Joe Pickett Novel
C.J. Box. Putnam, $28 (368p) ISBN 978-0-525-53823-3I
n Edgar winner Box’s terrific 20th novel featuring
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett (after 2019’s
Wolf Pack), a retired FBI agent warns Joe’s longtime
falconer friend, Nate Romanowski, that the Mexican
drug cartel whose four assassins Nate helped take down
in Wolf Pack have marked Nate as a target for revenge.
The cartel has dispatched Orlando Panfile, an expert
marksman, to do the job. Meanwhile, someone takes a
long-range shot at ill-tempered Judge Hewitt in his home
that hits Hewitt’s wife, leaving her in critical condition.
Could it be Panfile? Joe is asked to join the investigation
by the new county sheriff, Brendan Kapelow, who
eventually becomes convinced that Nate is responsible for the shooting. Kapelow
arrests Nate for attempted murder when a long-range rifle is discovered hidden
in one of his falcon pens. Of course, Joe isn’t buying it, and conducts his own
unauthorized investigation to help clear Nate. But why does Panfile mount an
effort to have Nate freed? Clever plotting keeps this conspiracy yarn moving
briskly, and the scenes depicting Nate’s abuse while in prison are harrowing.
This is another top-flight crime yarn illustrating why Box’s readers are never
happier than when Joe and Nate have reason to “get western.” Author tour.
Agent: Ann Rittenberg, Ann Rittenberg Literary. (Mar.)