The maze

John Corey isn't exactly enjoying retirement. It wasn't his choice, in the first place. The federal government, for whom he most recently worked (he's also been a NYPD cop), doesn't want him anymore. And in the second place, Corey's the kind of guy who needs to be moving, working, doing something useful. So when someone with whom he used to be very close asks him to dig into some unsolved murders, it doesn't take him too long to say yes. But finding a suspected serial killer turns out to be more complicated than even Corey, an expert at complicated investigations, could have imagined. DeMille is one of those writers who rarely has a misfire. The Corey novels (this is the eighth) have been uniformly strong, mostly due to his lead character, a deeply complex, compelling, and unpredictable fellow. A complete success.

Bestseller DeMille's ponderous eighth John Corey novel (after 2015's Radiant Angel) drags Corey--former NYPD detective, former contract agent with the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, former member of the Diplomatic Surveillance Group, and former adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice--out of his enforced retirement. One of Corey's former lovers, Det. Beth Penrose of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad, urges him to take a job with a private investigation firm on Long Island called Security Solutions. After much dithering, Corey finally succumbs to Beth's entreaties and winds up in a treacherous maze of vice, graft, and blackmail, and on the trail of a serial killer. Fortunately, the dirty cops and lowlifes employed by the detective agency are as old-school as Corey, who ends up looking for incriminating evidence among Security Solutions' recent videocassettes and paper ledgers, which are stored in a basement secured by a padlock. Armed with his trusty Glock, a crowbar, and unlimited cockiness, Corey manfully succeeds in fighting crime. This is for die-hard fans only. Agents: Sloan Harris and Jennifer Joel, ICM Partners. (Oct.)

Book 8 in DeMille's John Corey series unlocks a complex murder mystery set on Fire Island. The jokes start right away: "You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning." Corey is a former NYPD homicide detective, and he's currently "NYU--New York Unemployed." He has plenty of enemies, like the Russian SVR intelligence service, which wants him dead--but waiting for that plotline to develop is like waiting for Godot. Ex-lover Det. Beth Penrose conveys an offer that he become a consultant to Security Solutions Investigative Services, "a very tacky private investigative agency" located on Suffolk County farmland with a giant hedge maze as a neighbor. Though Beth doesn't say so, the plan seems to be that Corey will be her confidential informant, getting inside Security Solutions to learn if it has any connection to the killings of nine young Long Island women. Security Solutions is a fun-loving outfit, with after-hours parties like Thirsty Thursdays. You've got your booze, your broads with names like Tiffany, your cops both present and ex, your politicians, a disbarred lawyer--fertile and dangerous grounds for Corey's snooping. Like the maze, the plot has "twisting paths with lots of dead ends," but "you have to wake up real early to pull one over on John Corey." But before the guns start blasting, he fires his "pocket rocket" into a willing woman, a suspect named Amy. "Emission accomplished," he later muses. Ah yes, Corey has a million sex jokes that would have teenagers TikTok-ing "ROFLMAO." Are there nude beaches in Bermuda? He'd love to check out the Bermuda triangles. Is tonight "poker night? Or poke her night?" And why do strippers have names like Tiffany and not Best Buy? Anyway, Corey hasn't settled down with a woman: "Ospreys mate for life," he states. "But are they happy?" Oh yes, again with the plot: There's a tough, unsolved murder case with interlocking crimes and suspects that ends in a fiery finish. A well-done crime yarn but not for the straight-laced or those prone to fantods. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

John Corey isn't exactly enjoying retirement. It wasn't his choice, in the first place. The federal government, for whom he most recently worked (he's also been a NYPD cop), doesn't want him anymore. And in the second place, Corey's the kind of guy who needs to be moving, working, doing something useful. So when someone with whom he used to be very close asks him to dig into some unsolved murders, it doesn't take him too long to say yes. But finding a suspected serial killer turns out to be more complicated than even Corey, an expert at complicated investigations, could have imagined. DeMille is one of those writers who rarely has a misfire. The Corey novels (this is the eighth) have been uniformly strong, mostly due to his lead character, a deeply complex, compelling, and unpredictable fellow. A complete success. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

In Bentley's Tom Clancy Target Acquired, Jack Ryan Jr. is on a seemingly simple stakeout in Israel when he is targeted by trained killers. Ellroy delivers Widespread Panic in his latest, which features a former cop negotiating his way through dark-and-dirty Fifties Los Angeles as a private eye. In The Maze, retired NYPD Homicide Detective John Corey answers the call to help investigate when bodies are found buried on the beach. Broadcast journalist-turned-cybersecurity expert Ali Reynolds must deal with both a serial killer and a former employee of her husband just out of prison in Jance's Unfinished Business (100,000-copy first printing). In Johansen's The Bullet, it's bad news for forensic sculptor Eve Duncan when the former wife of her beloved Joe Quinn returns with dangerous secrets (100,000-copy first printing). In Lippman's tense fantasia, novelist Gerry Andersen is trapped in bed after an accident and fears he is losing his mind when he thinks he's getting phone calls from the main character in his big-deal novel Dream Girl (200,000-copy first printing). From mega-best-selling Patterson and former President Clinton, The President's Daughter features a new family in the White House—and a former White House family targeted by an international assassin (one-million-copy first printing). Joined by Quartermous, Woods hits the Jackpot with another Teddy Fay thriller, as Teddy investigates threats to a film festival in sumptuous Macau.

In Bentley's Tom Clancy Zero Hour, Jack Ryan Jr. is interviewing a Campus prospect in Seoul when North Korea's leader is devastatingly injured, prompting a power struggle among sleeper agents in South Korea. In Berry's The Omega Factor, UNESCO investigator Nicholas Lee is following a lead to the long-missing 12th panel of the relentlessly plundered Ghent Altarpiece when he stumbles upon a centuries-old conflict between some no-nonsense nuns called the Maidens of Saint-Michael and the Vatican, desperate to grab a secret the maidens guard (200,000-copy first printing). Having appeared in six best-selling DeMille novels, retired NYPD Homicide Detective John Corey is hanging out at his uncle's waterfront estate on Long Island when he heeds a call to help find a serial killer who is dispatching prostitutes and burying them along the beach in The Maze (originally scheduled for June 2021; 500,000-copy first printing). Pulled from the icy Pacific and presumed dead, a revived Elle can remember little except her name in Dodd's stand-alone, Point Last Seen, but it surely looks to rescuer Adam like someone tried to kill her (75,000-copy paperback and 10,000-copy hardcover first printing). What could be Red on the River in the next exemplar of Romantic suspense from Feehan, which is set in the Sierra Nevada mountains? When tomb raiders kill archaeologist Riley Smith's father after he discovers the burial site of Helen of Troy, Riley seeks revenge while asking forensic sculptor Eve Duncan to reconstruct A Face To Die For (100,000-copy first printing). Marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch have their hands full in Knott's Robert B. Parker's Opium Rose when the daughter of Virgil's half-brother arrives in Appaloosa, having fled San Francisco following the death of her lawyer husband; apparently, he was involved in a big opium operation. In Escape, a follow-up to Patterson's Black Book, a rich-as-Croesus crime lord breaks out of jail and leaves a taunting note for crack Chicago detective Billy Harney, who he knew would be called to the scene (300,000-copy first printing). In Quirk's Red Warning, CIA officer Sam Hudson is nearly blown up in Geneva as he obsessively tracks Russian mole Konstanin, then dodges bombs back in Washington, DC, when Konstanin follows him home (125,000-copy first printing).

Bestseller DeMille's ponderous eighth John Corey novel (after 2015's Radiant Angel) drags Corey—former NYPD detective, former contract agent with the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, former member of the Diplomatic Surveillance Group, and former adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice—out of his enforced retirement. One of Corey's former lovers, Det. Beth Penrose of the Suffolk County Homicide Squad, urges him to take a job with a private investigation firm on Long Island called Security Solutions. After much dithering, Corey finally succumbs to Beth's entreaties and winds up in a treacherous maze of vice, graft, and blackmail, and on the trail of a serial killer. Fortunately, the dirty cops and lowlifes employed by the detective agency are as old-school as Corey, who ends up looking for incriminating evidence among Security Solutions' recent videocassettes and paper ledgers, which are stored in a basement secured by a padlock. Armed with his trusty Glock, a crowbar, and unlimited cockiness, Corey manfully succeeds in fighting crime. This is for die-hard fans only. Agents: Sloan Harris and Jennifer Joel, ICM Partners. (Oct.)