Book Review: Nighthawks, Stephen Connor Mystery Book 2, Lambert Nagle
Mystery/Thriller: Nighthawks, Stephen Connor Mystery Book 2, Lambert Nagle
Blog Tour March 10, 2021
Stephen Connor’s boss does not like him. She especially doesn’t like that the Metropolitan Police Department, aka Scotland Yard, has made him a literal poster boy on their recruitment brochures. This means she cannot fire him. She can, however, send him to Rome to help investigate art crimes.
This comes at a most awkward time for Connor. His wedding is scheduled and the venue booked. His fiance is angry, her father will be angry, the deposit will likely be forfeit, and it is likely that a choice lies before him: keep his job and go to Rome, or keep his fiance and lose his job.
Rome really is an extraordinary city from what I’ve heard.
Connor and his partner stumble into a world of transnational theft and graft, taking them from Rome to Geneva to Boston. A disgraced priest who is the confessor for a mob kingpin. A teenage junkie looking for his next fix. A missing artifact from the Vatican museum with a doubtful provenance. A seemingly wealthy art broker living beyond his means. Art may often be an expression of beauty, but Connor finds out it is also a gateway to a dark and ugly world of theft and abuse and murder.
Lambert Nagle is the pen name for a pair of authors, Alison Ripley Cubitt and Sean Cubitt. Their eclectic and international backgrounds inform this book throughout. Both have traveled extensively and boast of having six passports between them. I suspect that a scene where Connor has jet lag after flying from Rome to Boston was one they could write from actual personal experience! Having co-authors helps avoid certain pitfalls common to the thriller genre–yes, I am talking about the “male gaze” that turns women into decorative distressed damsels–and having co-authors who are both professional writers and communicators makes for a very lively story throughout.
I really like the protagonist. Stephen Connor is not an unearthly genius nor is he a martial arts god. He is a solid, committed policeman. Occasionally his penchant for doing the right thing creates problems when the right thing is not by the book. But he gets the job done through persistence, through relationships, through his strength of character, and with a lot of help from those around him. He struggles with relationships, he annoys authorities, and he hates losing. Those characteristics may or may not help him be a great policeman. They do help him be a great character in a book.
As so often happens, having read book two of this series I am now eager to find and read book one. Lambert Nagle has a winning formula and I look forward to reading more from him. Her. Them.
Our thanks to Rachel Gilbey of Rachel’s Random Resources blog tours for our copy of Nighthawks, given solely for our participation in this blog tour. For other perspectives on the book, check out the other bloggers on this tour. The opinions here are those of Scintilla.
Book Review: Nighthawks, Lambert Nagle