Two Nights

May 1, 2017
Sunday Night, the star of this fast-paced series launch from bestseller Reichs (Speaking in Bones and 17 other Temperance Brennan forensic thrillers), retreats to isolated Goat Island near Charleston, S.C., after an injury ends her police career. As a child, she barely escaped from a cult that claimed her mother’s life. Concerned about her well-being, her former foster father, cop Perry “Beau” Beaumonde, entices her out of seclusion by asking her to look for a teenage girl whose wealthy grandmother believes she was kidnapped by a cult. Sunday enlists her twin brother, August (“Gus”), in a search that leads to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., in pursuit of homegrown terrorists. Reichs sacrifices character development for unrelenting action, but Brennan fans should appreciate Sunday—a self-sufficient, tough-talking, scarred heroine—and the unquestioningly loyal, quietly lethal Gus. An explosive finale at the Kentucky Derby seems designed for the big screen. Agent: Jennifer Rudolph-Walsh, William Morris Endeavor.

May 15, 2017
A search for a missing girl resurrects traumatic memories for a woman already struggling with life.Sunday Night--not her real name--lives in seclusion on an island off the South Carolina coast while contemplating the ruins of her life. Her early childhood was a nightmare. Taken in by policeman Perry "Beau" Beaumonde, rebellious Sunday earned a choice of jail or the armed forces. Her stint in the Marines led to a job with the Charleston PD, where the accidental shooting of an unarmed man has left her wounded and pensioned off. That's when Beau suggests she take an investigative job for wealthy, well-connected Opaline Drucker, whose 15-year-old granddaughter, Stella, may have been kidnapped by a cult after she missed being killed in a Hebrew school bombing that claimed the lives of her mother and brother (though the family isn't Jewish). Accepting the job, Sunday heads to Chicago, where Drucker's connections get her first-class treatment and information from the cops handling the case. Paranoid Sunday sets up motion detectors in her room at the Ritz and moves from hotel to hotel while awaiting the results of her internet trolling. She hears from the bombers and manages to avoid one trap but gets ambushed at the Ritz, where she kills an attacker identified as one of the bombing suspects from an old security tape. Seeking help in staking out a female member of the gang, Sunday calls on her twin brother, Gus, and they chase the suspects from Chicago to California and back East. Reichs periodically interrupts this tale with the first-person narrative of a girl desperately trying to escape a cult. Is it Stella or Sunday? Are the bombers really trying to kill Jewish schoolchildren, or is their motive still deeper? Reichs' newest heroine, the polar opposite of cerebral Temperance Brennan (Speaking in Bones, 2015, etc.), is fueled by a well-nigh uncontrollable rage in her thrilling, violent search for a missing girl so much like herself.

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May 1, 2017
Here's a stand-alone novel by the author of the Temperance Brennan mysteries. Sunday Sunnie Night is a former cop living in the Charleston, South Carolina, area. When a friend asks her to look into the year-old disappearance of a 15-year-old girl, Sunnie hesitates. But when she learns that the missing girl's family was murdered and that their killer has never been found, her sense of outrage won't let her stay away. Soon she's in Chicago, where the tragedy occurred, trying to turn a cold case hot again. Sunday Night is a different character from Tempe Brennan; she's a wisecracker, she's sarcastic, she's secretive about her past. On the other hand, she shares Brennan's hard-edged approach to people who get in her way and her strength of conviction. The story is cleverly plotted (Reichs has always had a knack for building good plots), and the writing is crisp and vivid, as though telling a fresh story about a new character has energized the author. Reichs' legion of fans should be encouraged to check out this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2017

In what's billed as a stand-alone, the creator of the hugely popular Temperance Brennan comes up with her first new protagonist since her 1997 debut. Sunday Night is the classic tough woman who won't look back, and she's just about got it licked when an exploding bomb leaves a girl missing. Sunnie is asked to find whether the girl is dead, kidnapped, or gone of her own accord, and she agrees because it might help her work out her own past.

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