At What Cost

October 3, 2016
At the start of L’Etoile’s nail-biting debut starring Det. John Penley of the Sacramento, Calif., PD, a unique gang tattoo identifies a headless and limbless torso as belonging to gang member Daniel Cardozo. Two members of different gangs were previously similarly murdered, leading Penley to conclude that a serial killer, dubbed the Outcast Killer, is at large. Later, at an abandoned warehouse where a chicken has been sacrificed, the police find a circle of melted candles and chalk drawings clearly replicating Daniel’s tattoo. Locked metal cabinets at the scene, when opened, contain a kidney on ice, which serves as a direct message from the killer to Penley, whose teenage son, Tommy, is awaiting a kidney from the transplant list. After the killer contacts Penley via the Internet asking for $10,000 to procure a kidney for Tommy, the detective, unwilling to pay the ransom, races to outwit the fiend before Tommy becomes another one of his victims. L’Etoile, who has served as an associate prison warden, keeps the suspense high throughout. Agent: Elizabeth K. Kracht, Kimberley Cameron and Associates.

October 1, 2016
LEtoiles first novel pits a Sacramento police detective against a killer whos mutilated corpses for the worst possible reason.High-ranking gangbanger Daniel Cardozo is the third victim of the Outcast Killer, but he carries one final distinction to the grave: hes the first one whose arms and legs, among other parts, were removed while he was still alive. What makes someone act like the Outcast Killer, wonders Detective John Penley, and how can the homicide squad possibly catch a criminal whos so obsessively successful in leaving no trace evidence at any of his crime scenes? These are weighty questions, but Penley is grappling with another even weightier: will doctors find a donor kidney for his son, 9-year-old Tommy, whose renal failure is making him sicker and sicker, in time to save his life? As Penley contemplates paying a wraithlike online correspondent $10,000 for a black-market kidney, his quarry, who sees human bodies as boxes of saleable goodies, toys with him in the cruelest possible way, by sending him a recently harvested kidney as a gift. The sequence surrounding the attempted transplant is brutal and harrowing, but it does give Penley important new leads and eventually helps him connect the recent rash of murders to a forgotten past injustice. Just as Penley seems to be closing in on the killer, whos routinely been two steps ahead of his every maneuver, Tommy is kidnapped, and Penley forgets everything else in his frantic attempt to rescue his ailing son. The milieu, suspects, and supporting characters are all forgettable, and the killer scarcely puts in an appearance before hes unmasked as a bogeyman. The results are best suited to nail-biters in search of something to read in a single breathless sitting, though presumably not in a doctors waiting room.

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November 1, 2016

Sacramento, CA, police detective James Penley and new partner Paula Newberry are investigating the grisly murders of gang members whose gutted corpses (all missing internal organs) have been dumped along a river. As the bodies pile up, it becomes personal for Penley. The murderer is harvesting organs for sale on the black market, and Penley's son is dying of kidney disease. Can he trust the medical establishment to save his son's life or is he willing to cross the line and jeopardize his career? L'Etoile's (Little River) nail-bitting dark thriller not only ratchets up the suspense but also raises ethical questions worth pondering: Would you do whatever it takes to save your child, or would you put your faith in the system and the law? VERDICT Fans of tough, well-written procedurals in the tradition of Michael Connelly will want to read this series debut.

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