The Burn

December 2, 2019
Edgar-finalist Kent’s harrowing sequel to 2017’s The Dime finds narcotics detective Betty Rhyzyk still recovering from her violent clash with a cultlike family of meth dealers, and her restless time on medical leave has taken a toll on her longtime girlfriend, Jackie, and their relationship. Her first day back at Dallas PD, Betty is eager to help flush out Alfonso Ruiz Zena (aka the Knife), head of the security force for Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. A brutalized body provides a clue, but Betty’s soon relegated to desk duty and ordered to see a therapist. As the bodies of drug dealers begin to pile up, the word on the street is that the shooter might be a cop, and Betty starts working her network of confidential informants for any leads on a killer who may be hiding in plain sight. The blunt, volatile, and relentlessly brave Betty leaps off the page, and Kent hits her with a frequently terrifying obstacle course of hair-raising scenarios. Readers will clamor for the irresistible Betty’s next chapter. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group.

Starred review from December 1, 2019
Dallas detective Betty Rhyzyk is back in action and looking to take down a brutal cartel assassin responsible for several murders in Kent's (The Dime, 2019, etc.) modern noir. Several months after she was rescued from torture and imprisonment at the hands of Evangeline Roy and her ring of meth dealers, Betty has begun healing, though her inability to run off stress because of an injured leg, coupled with her denial of her post-traumatic fears, is driving her girlfriend, Jackie, crazy. She returns to active duty as a narcotics detective, but following some bad decisions, she's quickly relegated to a desk by her sergeant, Marshall Maclin. The narcotics division is busy tracking down a man known as El Cuchillo (The Knife), the leader of the Sinaloa cartel's particularly brutal security force, but when local drug dealers begin turning up dead, Betty becomes concerned by rumors that the true killer might not be El Cuchillo but rather a cop with a score to settle. Though she doesn't want to admit it, her secret suspicions fall on her partner, Seth, who has been keeping company with known dealers, stealing crime scene evidence, and exhibiting signs of addiction. With the help of some unorthodox investigators, including a homeless pregnant girl and Jackie's Vietnam vet uncle, Betty sets out to track down a confidential informant who may be able to identify the cop involved--heading straight back into danger. In this second outing for Detective Rhyzyk, the action is all a little closer to home, and Kent continues to reinvent and subvert traditional noir expectations with the larger-than-life, damaged, courageous Betty. Like many a noir detective before her, she is constantly running into the wall of her own vulnerability, wounded just as much by her own stubborn code of loyalty as she is by those attacking her. Action-driven mystery anchored by dynamic, deep characters.

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December 1, 2019
In this series' Edgar-nominated debut, The Dime (2017), Dallas narcotics detective Betty Rhyzyk survived kidnapping and torture by Evangeline Roy's meth-dealing cult. Time is healing her body's wounds, but Betty is sidelined to desk duty when rage-filled PTSD rears its head. She reluctantly agrees to therapy, but staying off the streets is out of the question when drug dealers' bodies start turning up, united by their killer's Bible-verse calling card. She knows the verse: it's the oath that Evangeline Roy used to taunt her. Suddenly, Betty is catching glimpses of Evangeline, now a fugitive, everywhere. When her unofficial investigation leads to Dallas' labyrinthine homeless encampments, she finds a witness whose information could either point to a ruthless cartel enforcer or her worst nightmare: Evangeline. Here, Betty's struggles with PTSD and challenges to her identity as a cop spark compelling character evolution as she lowers walls to bond with a pair of old souls she meets on the streets. A gripping, powerfully human procedural.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2019

Alas for Dallas narcotics detective Betty Rhyzyk. Not only is she having trouble readjusting to life after a brutal run-in with an apocalyptic cult, but her informants are being knocked off, her partner is getting hooked on prescription painkillers (having suffered injuries while rescuing her), and her wife is feeling left out. And it gets worse: now Betty must face down a local drug cartel and a bunch of corrupt cops. From the author of the Edgar Award-nominated The Dime.

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