The Killing Storm
A Sarah Armstrong Mystery by Kathryn Casey
Review: Texas Ranger and criminal profiler Sarah Armstrong must act quickly to find a kidnapped boy before a hurricane heading for Houston hits the city in The Killing Storm, the third mystery in this series by Kathryn Casey.
Four-year-old Joey Warner and his mother Crystal often go to their neighborhood park. This day Crystal is talking on her cell phone when a man pleads with Joey to help him find his lost puppy. The man tells Joey that he and his mom are friends and assures him that he knows his mom would want him to help find the dog. Hearing this, Joey goes with the stranger. When Crystal looks around and finally realizes Joey is gone, she calls 9-1-1. The county sheriff’s men are the first on the scene, issuing an Amber Alert. The FBI brings in Agent David Garrity, who gets in touch with Sarah to help profile the kidnapper. Time is always of the essence in these cases, but Hurricane Juanita, a Category 4 storm, is moving in off the Gulf, threatening to hamper their best efforts.
Separately, Sarah is involved with a case of million dollar Longhorn bulls that have been killed with shotgun blasts to their heads, a symbol carved into their hides and their carcasses circled in the dirt. The symbols are Sarah's most promising clue, replicas of those used at the time of when slaves worked the sugarcane plantations and representing an African culture. Sarah believes that the four bulls to date are simply warnings, that a human victim will be next.
The Killing Storm offers readers two cases for Sarah to solve, both rather horrific in their own way, their resolutions uncertain. Balancing this, but of equal importance, is the touching underlying subplot involving Sarah and her daughter Maggie. The approaching storm adds tension to each of the storylines. Still, it is the remarkably drawn character of Sarah Armstrong that ties everything together, and makes this mystery all the more enjoyable.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of The Killing Storm.
Acknowledgment: Minotaur Books provided a copy of The Killing Storm for this review.
Review Copyright © 2010 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
Blood Lines
Minotaur Books (Hardcover), July 2009
ISBN-13: 9780312379513; ISBN-10: 031237951X
Location(s) referenced in The Killing Storm: Houston, Texas
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The Killing Storm by Kathryn Casey
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-312-37952-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37952-0
Publication Date: October 2010
List Price: $25.99
Synopsis (from the publisher): On a quiet afternoon in the park, four-year-old Joey plays in the sandbox, when a stranger approaches looking for his puppy. While Joey’s mom, Crystal, talks on her cell phone, the stranger convinces the child to help search. By the time Crystal turns around, her son has disappeared. Yet her reaction is odd, not what one would expect from a distraught mother. Is Crystal somehow involved in her son’s abduction?
Meanwhile, on a ranch outside Houston, Texas Ranger Sarah Armstrong assesses a symbol left on the hide of a slaughtered longhorn, a figure that dates back to a forgotten era of sugarcane plantations and slavery. Soon other prizewinning bulls are butchered on the outskirts of the city, each bearing a similar drawing. The investigations converge at the same time a catastrophic hurricane looms in the Gulf. Finally, as dangerous winds and torrential rains pummel the city, Sarah is forced to risk her life to save Joey.