Deus X

September 11, 2023
Jones’s ripping fourth August Snow thriller (after 2021’s Dead of Winter) sees the former Detroit detective facing off against a shadow organization intent on burying the secrets of the Catholic church. Shortly after taking out a target in Norway, Snow receives a call from an old friend that sends him racing home to Detroit’s Mexicantown. There, he finds one priest dead of an apparent suicide, and Father Michael Grabowski, whom Snow has known all his life, suspiciously retired from the church he’s served for 40 years. Snow learns that Grabowski has been compelled to quit by Father Dominioni Petra, who was sent to Detroit by the Vatican and a mysterious group known as Deus X. After some digging, Snow discovers that Deus X targeted Father Grabowski because, while serving in Mexico, he helped a cartel leader kill sexually abusive priests. To save his friend, Snow must untangle a well-funded conspiracy to protect Catholic bad actors. Jones never lets his foot off the gas, and he brings Snow’s Detroit to vivid life, populating the city with memorable characters and wringing atmosphere from its crime-steeped history. This one’s a blast for newcomers and series fans alike. Agent: Stephany Evans, Collins Literary.

September 15, 2023
August Octavio Snow, who was fired for daring to lift his head above the corruption swamping the Detroit Police Department, is confronted with his fourth and biggest case yet. Called home from Oslo, where he's been helping the local cops and nuzzling with his girlfriend, anthropology professor Tatina Stadtmueller, by the hospitalization of his elderly neighbor Sylvia Zychek following a heart attack, Snow breathes easier after his old buddy, Ojibwe cybersecurity expert Lucy Three Rivers, hacks into Sylvia's bare-bones Medicare supplement provider's database and arranges top-quality care for her. But more trouble is brewing. Father Mieczyk Grabowski has retired from his pastoral position for reasons that are disturbingly unclear. The arrival of Father Dominioni Petra, from the Vatican Office of Criminal Investigations, and the report of nearby Father Michael O'Shannon's suicide don't clear up the mystery, but they definitely raise the stakes. Long story short: Father Grabowski has been marked for execution by Deus X, a network of assassins dedicated to avenging the Catholic clergy's decades of sexual abuse, one abuser at a time. There's much, much more, since Jones is more notable for fertile invention than discipline. The real treat here, though, is the distinctively celebratory way Jones--who has a Mexican American mother and a Black father--and his old friends and allies of convenience speak truth to power. They're read the white man's books; they've listened to the white man's music; they've tried the white man's recipes; they've lived for years under the white man's thumb; and they earn every drop of the energetic and self-conscious disdain indicated by Snow's faux-apologetic remark, "I was just the worst as an altar boy." Series fans will be happy to learn that the cesspool of Detroit politics can't hold a candle to the Vatican.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from October 1, 2023

Donut shops that employ skilled killers, young hackers planning revenge, and midnight meetings at rundown cathedrals are typical of this Hammett Award--winning series set in Detroit. Ex-cop August Snow received a $12 million settlement from the city after he was fired and is using the money to restore his beloved neighborhood. While doing that, he's built a found family, including two elderly neighbors, a young hacker, his godfather, and a Franciscan priest, Father Grabowski, who was beloved by August's mother and abruptly retired following the hanging death of a young priest in a neighboring suburb. Put the suicide and retirement together with the sudden appearance of a priest who claims to be from the Vatican, and threatening phone calls to the retired priest, and Snow is suspicious. He doesn't know much about Father Grabowski's past, but he'll dig for the truth. He won't let religious fanatics or the Catholic Church hierarchy take down his friend without a fight. VERDICT There's a face-off between organized religion and friendship in Jones's well-written, compelling sequel to Dead of Winter. It's a gritty crime novel for fans of Joe Ide's "IQ" series or David Heska Wanbli Weiden's Winter Counts.--Lesa Holstine

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2023
In his fourth appearance in Jones' vibrant, funny, gritty, astute, and caring mystery series, Black Mexican military veteran and Detroit ex-cop August Snow, whose name is "brimming with seasonal and metaphorical contradictions," continues his precarious balancing act as a private eye and community benefactor in his struggling Mexicantown neighborhood. He's traveled to Oslo to be with his love, Tatina, a professor, but cuts his visit short when Lucy Tree Rivers, a "master hacker and proven smartass," summons him back to help their mutual friend, Sylvia Zychek. August soon finds himself navigating a confounding and disturbing web of secrets ensnaring Jimmy, his prot�g�, and Father Grabowski, a beloved yet mysterious priest, leading to confrontations with the Vatican and a clandestine group known as Deus X. As August asserts his fluency in creative insults, obsessions with food and vintage cars, and love for his motley neighbors, Jones orchestrates new challenges for his irresistible hero in a steadily escalating tale involving a vicious cartel, sexually predatory priests, different forms of spirituality, and diverse people determined to help and protect each other.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.