The Girl from Devil's Lake by J.A. Jance

 

First Line: Fertile, Minnesota. 1956. The voices had been with Steve for as long as he could remember.

It should be a time for celebration for Sheriff Joanna Brady. It's the holiday season, and her daughter, Jenny, is graduating from the police academy. Instead, the body of a young boy is discovered caught beneath a flooded bridge, and Joanna is called in to investigate.

The young boy was murdered, and crime scene details tell Joanna two things: this wasn't the killer's first murder, and it's only a matter of time before he kills again. But it's not long until Joanna begins to understand that this murder is just one piece of a much larger puzzle, a puzzle that spans decades and long distances. In tracking down every dangerous lead, Joanna has her work cut out for her.

~

J.A. Jance's Sheriff Joanna Brady series is one that I've loved for years. It's set in Cochise County, Arizona, an area I know well and love, and Jance (who lived in Bisbee) brings the Arizona desert to life. Any reader who loves a cast of characters who grow and change over the years should dive right into these books, starting with the first, Desert Heat. In no time at all, these characters will feel like family.

The Girl from Devil's Lake is a fast-paced dive into how a prolific serial killer can live undetected for decades. Jance doesn't dwell on his crimes, but on how he's managed to blend in-- and how Sheriff Joanna Brady manages to bring him to justice. One of the ways she does it is by occasionally letting readers see things from the killer's point of view.

Joanna has come a long way over the years. Now a seasoned and well-respected sheriff, she has worked hard to develop friends and knowledgeable contacts in law enforcement. I wondered how the series would change as she aged, and having her eldest daughter, Jenny, graduate from the police academy and join the Pima County Sheriff's Department is the perfect choice to keep these stories fresh. 

Reading this book was like catching up with what's been happening with family. The book title also added spice and anticipation to the killer's downfall. From her first appearance, I knew that the girl from Devil's Lake would make her mark. Now I can't wait for the next installment. Seriously, if you are a character-driven mystery-loving reader and you haven't read these books, do it!

The Girl from Devil's Lake by J.A. Jance

eISBN: 9780063252653

William Morrow © 2025

eBook, 336 pages

Police Procedural, #21 Joanna Brady

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley 

Looking Glass by Andrew Mayne

 

First Line: Tiko kicked the deflated soccer ball down the alley, laughing as MauMau, the tan puppy with the chewed-up ear, chased it into the puddle, his too-big paws splattering mud and droplets everywhere.

 

After using revolutionary scientific methods to catch one of the most prolific serial killers in history, Professor Theo Cray has found himself cut off from university research. He's trying to rebuild his life, but when the desperate father of a missing child comes to him for help, Cray finds himself drawn into another unsolved case.

 

The only clues he has to go on are children's drawings and an inner-city urban legend about someone called the Toy Man. To unravel this mystery, Cray is going to have to set aside his scientific preconceptions and learn to embrace a world where dreams and nightmares carry just as much weight as reality. 

 

~

 

When I read the first book in this series, The Naturalist, I felt as though I'd hit the jackpot with the main character, Dr. Theo Cray. This feeling continued in Looking Glass. In my review of the first book, I said: "Cray is a wimp. He's a nerd. He has trouble relating to people because his head is so thoroughly buried in science and he spends so much time alone on field trips." In this second book, Cray isn't such a wimp anymore. His experiences have changed him, and he's learned how to protect himself better and how to minimize the risks he takes. What hasn't changed is how much I love watching how this character's mind works and how he tracks things down and puts them together. He sees patterns that no one else can, and that's highly important in his search for the Toy Man and the missing children. Cray may say that he can't read his own moral compass, but he definitely has one. When he sees something wrong-- especially something that others are knowingly turning a blind eye to-- he will not quit until the bad guys are caught. No matter what it takes.

Shunned by fellow academics, Cray is looked upon as the Dark Knight in defense intelligence circles, and they're hoping that he'll develop programs they can use both in war and in law enforcement. He's doing his best to steer clear of the war part of the work, and he made me smile when he uses his clearance and some of the tricks he's learned in his new job to help him on his quest to find the missing children. 

Andrew Mayne certainly knows how to write a story and a main character that set fire to my imagination, and although I did find the serial killer in Looking Glass to be a bit over the top, both the killer and the events surrounding him aren't completely out of the realm of possibility. I've grabbed a copy of the next Theo Cray thriller, and I know that I'll enjoy reading it.

Looking Glass by Andrew Mayne

eISBN: 9781542047999

Thomas & Mercer © 2018

eBook, 317 pages

Thriller/Amateur Sleuth, #2 Dr. Theo Cray mystery

Rating: A-

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

First Line: He clenches the orange plastic pony in the pocket of his sports coat.

In The Shining Girls, a time-traveling serial killer named Harper Curtis meets Kirby Mazrachi, a young woman who refuses to die.

Stumbling into a house in Depression-Era Chicago that opens into other times, Curtis is compelled to kill young women who are shining with potential, often meeting them as children and telling them that he'll be back. After each killing Curtis simply disappears back into the house and another time period.

Kirby is the last shining girl, the shining girl who survived. She's made a vow to herself to bring her would-be killer to justice and uses her work with Chicago Sun-Times ex-homicide reporter Dan Velasquez towards this goal. The truth-- once she starts homing in on it-- is unbelievable.

I have to admit that I was drawn to this book by its conceit of a time-traveling serial killer. I wanted to see how the author would make this work. She does, but the results are very uneven.

The unevenness begins with the setting. Chicago during many different time periods (beginning with the Depression) would be a marvelous setting for this type of book, and it started out to be here. However, the various Chicago scenes soon felt like two-dimensional stage props, or like name dropping. Instead of bringing me deeper into the story, Chicago was keeping me out.

The characters did the same thing. Curtis the Killer is described as "charming" more than once, but that charm never came across to me. He remained nothing more than a creepy, scary figure in the shadows whom I would hope to face with some sort of real weapon in my hand if we were ever to meet. Kirby, as the  survivor who's trying to bring Curtis to justice, should elicit sympathy from readers, but outside of the very well-written and emotional scene where she is attacked and left for dead, she is anything but sympathetic. The experience has turned Kirby into a distrustful girl who keeps the world at bay with the liberal application of sarcasm. Although this would be a natural reaction to such a horrific event, the reader needs to be able to see past that from time to time. Since I couldn't, Kirby and her mission never really came to life.

The only characters who did in fact shine for me were the "shining girls" that Curtis dispatched so quickly. As Kirby researches what clues she can find, we are allowed to glimpse into these victims' lives and know that they would truly have been extraordinary. Along with Kirby's much-maligned dog Houdini, these are the characters who generated enough interest for me to continue to read the book.

There were also two more points in the book that didn't quite make sense to me. One, the house that allowed Curtis to travel back and forth through time needed to be explained a bit more. Readers are allowed to believe that there's something mystical going on, a strange presence of sorts. Perhaps the author felt this was needed in order to explain the time-traveling process, but I think most readers would prefer thinking the house just does it by methods unknown rather than to have the author mention something but never reveal it in more detail. The second point that bothered me was the clues that Curtis would leave behind at each crime scene. They're very distinctive clues that would stand out as "head scratchers" for certain, yet none of the homicide detectives seem to think they mean anything. I don't think seventy or eighty years' worth of detectives would completely overlook something so obvious and so puzzling.

Despite its unevenness, I did enjoy reading The Shining Girls because it's such an interesting concept, and-- as I mentioned before-- the attack scene with Kirby, Curtis, and Houdini the dog is extremely well written. The book just needed more scenes like those.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

ISBN: 9780316216852

Mulholland Books © 2013

Hardcover, 384 pages

Standalone thriller

Rating: C+

Source: the publicist