Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A famous author seeks Sunny Randall’s help in Gaylin’s third Robert B. Parker outing. Melanie Joan Hall, bestselling romance author, approaches her friend Sunny, who is “one of Boston’s premier private detectives.” Melanie has recently received a vicious one-star review of her upcoming memoir,Stronger Alone, by someone called Book Babe on the website ReadAnon. The anonymous reviewer is prolific and powerful, having posted 530 reviews. Only one—this one—receives a single star. Not only is the book trashed, but Melanie Joan is “brutalize[d]” as a human being. Deeply hurt, Melanie Joan posts a nasty, profane reply.Phew,the language. She promptly deletes it, but screen shots circulate immediately, and the world knows what she wrote. “Plenty of harm,” she admits. “And completely foul.” So now she wants Sunny to identify the reviewer so she can apologize in person. “If you don’t dox Book Babe…my career is over,” she pleads. Indeed, her publisher, Scepter, not only pulls her memoir but cancels her contract for future novels. There is more to this than a bad review, though. Who is Book Babe, anyway? Sunny intends to find out. Longtime Parker fans will recognize Melanie Joan as a recurring background figure who evolves into a major character with serious issues that require Sunny’s investigative chops. Gaylin builds the tension as Melanie Joan’s career crumbles and readers begin to wonder where the physical danger lurks. There are allusions to Sunny’s love life, past and present—she’s “engaged to be engaged” to her ex-husband—and to Melanie Joan’s past troubles with an abuser. The author takes her time dropping a dead body into the story, but then more violence follows, so Sunny doesn’t pack heat for nothing. In fact, the ending is intense. The plot is entertaining if a wee bit thin, hinging on the devastating repercussions of a single snarky review. Would that a reviewer had such power! A tense tale of doxxing and death. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.