The Guilty Dead

July 2, 2018
In Tracy’s busy ninth Monkeewrench novel (after 2017’s Nothing Stays Buried), the computer geeks of Grace MacBride’s Monkeewrench software company join forces with Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth. The death of Minnesota philanthropist Gregory Norwood just one year after the fatal overdose of his addict son, Trey Norwood, looks like a suicide, until Leo and Gino uncover enough oddities to suggest murder. Meanwhile, a new anti-terror program developed by Monkeewrench uncovers a terrorist plot to bomb city hall. That a lowlife named Gus Riskin had a hand in Trey’s death is revealed in the prologue, but Tracy maintains suspense by carefully concealing the links that connect Riskin to Gregory’s death and to the terrorist plot. The book’s chief pleasure lies in watching the members of MacBride’s oddball crew, including Harley Davidson and Roadrunner, match wits and skills with the wise-cracking detectives. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

Starred review from September 1, 2018

The murder of a junkie in Hollywood kicks off a crime spree in Minneapolis a year later, and homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth follow the clues. Gregory Norwood's death appears, at first glance, to be a suicide, but because the Minnesota businessman and philanthropist died of a single gunshot to the head a year after the death of his son, Trey, Magozzi is suspicious, and pushes the crime-scene investigators to look further. While he and Gino focus on Norwood, Magozzi's partner, Grace MacBride, and her Monkeewrench team of computer geniuses are working on a pilot for a new software program that can track terrorist threats. Monkeewrench warns of a local plot, but it's Magozzi who connects the dots to a bomb at the local FBI offices, a building also occupied by Norwood's attorney. He also realizes Grace, pregnant with their child, is on site at that same building. VERDICT Tracy combines the best qualities of a fast-paced thriller with an intricately plotted police procedural in this intense sequel to Nothing Stays Buried. There's a large cast of characters, but readers of the compelling Monkeewrench novels will have no problem following the suspenseful story.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018
Monkeewrench Software's ninth installment--and Traci Lambrecht's first solo outing since the death of her mother and co-author under the Tracy pseudonym, P.J. Lambrecht (Nothing Stays Buried, 2017, etc.)--shunts the gang of lovable misfits into decidedly supporting roles in a case of revenge served ice cold.Drug supplier Gus Riskin is so bent on vengeance that he's willing to kill off one of his best customers in Los Angeles, Trey Norwood--and incidentally his nameless girlfriend--in pursuit of it. The death reverberates in far-off Minneapolis, where Trey's father, Gregory Norwood II, is a beloved businessman and philanthropist. On the first anniversary of his son's death, the elder Norwood's old friend Robert Zeller takes time out from his gubernatorial campaign to phone Norwood, who's still grieved and suffering from pancreatic cancer. So it's not entirely a surprise when the cops Zeller asked to go to Norwood's house find him dead of a single gunshot wound. The surprise is that his death isn't the suicide it first seems. Hardly has Detective Leo Magozzi, of Minneapolis Homicide, digested the news that he's looking for a killer when another corpse turns up in a state park: Gerry Stenson, a photojournalist who'd been lurking around Norwood's estate hoping to get a few pictures. A constant stream of rumors about a terrorist attack on the Minneapolis City Hall, a mounting pile of fatalities, and some hints that the deaths of the two Norwoods are rooted in another crime buried deep in the family's past all keep Magozzi, or his author, from spending much time with Grace MacBride, who's almost ready to deliver his baby, or her pals at Monkeewrench: Harley Davidson, Roadrunner, or the comparatively well-adjusted Annie Belinsky.It's disappointing to see Tracy's franchise quartet mostly relegated to providing logistical support and serving as possible targets in this otherwise absorbing, proficient tale.

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August 1, 2018
In the ninth Twin Cities mystery, a wealthy man dies, apparently of suicide, on the one-year anniversary of his son's death by drug overdose. Minnesota detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth soon find evidence that the suicide was staged, but finding the murderer involves deciphering a lot of electronic evidence that, frankly, is beyond the detectives' level of expertise. Thankfully there's Monkeewrench, the software company owned and operated by the brilliant Grace MacBride, who's assisted the police several times in the past and who, not coincidentally, is spectacularly pregnant with Magozzi's child. This is the second Monkeewrench novel to be written solo by Traci Lambrecht, whose mother and writing partner, P. J., passed away in 2016. There may be minor stylistic differences between these and the earlier novels in the series, but they are very minor indeed and do not diminish the novels' appeal. Another winner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)