Gun Street Girl

April 22, 2013
Russian folklore and Cold War intrigue come to blows in Barlow’s uneven but charming five-part novel. The reader is introduced to Zoya, a babayaga, or witch, living in Paris some years after WWII, as she gets rid of a lover who has noticed her failure to visibly age. The messy results lead her to drag in Elga, her mentor; Elga in turn gets heat from a detective and turns him into a flea. Zoya then meets, charms, and falls for a CIA agent named Will who has problems of his own. As Elga takes on a new novice in order to take revenge on Zoya, Will’s mistakes entangle him in a CIA plot involving a former Nazi doctor with ties to the babayagas. The love story between Zoya and Will never quite gains believability, and the first half of the novel is slow, but the history Barlow (Sharp Teeth )weaves for the babayagas—Elga in particular—is worth reading. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, the Gernert Company.

January 12, 2015
Fans of Ned Kelly Award–winner McKinty’s Troubles trilogy (The Cold Cold Ground, etc.) will welcome this fourth outing for Sean Duffy, a Catholic detective for the Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary, in 1985 Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. Fighting internal forces on the one side and dealing with pressure from MI5 on the other, Duffy looks into the double murder of 22-year-old Michael Kelly’s parents. Michael apparently jumped off a cliff to his death after shooting them in the family living room. True to police procedural form, Duffy keeps up the world-weary demeanor even when his investigation calls the initial causes of the murders and suicide into doubt. Though the precarious Northern Irish context adds color and McKinty has a flair for detail (Duffy has to check under his car for bombs every time he drives), Duffy’s humdrum love affairs, with his one-dimensional romantic interests and McKinty’s stock dialogue, only reinforce old clichés. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Creative Book Services.