Starr Sign

Candace Starr #2

by C.S. O’Cinneide

Candace Starr goes searching for her mother in the Detroit mob — but infiltrating her own crime family may be her deadliest assignment ever.

Candace Starr has fallen on hard times since she helped her friend, Detective Malone, with a murder case last year. These days, she trades on her dark celebrity as a former contract killer to keep the wolf from the door and her glass of Scotch whisky full. But when her teenage half-sister, Janet, shows up, Candace finds herself responsible for more than her nightly bar bill.

Candace and Janet’s mercurial mother has gone missing while visiting her estranged family of Detroit mobsters, and Candace needs to track her down to take the kid off her hands. But the vicious Scarpello clan is hiding far more than her mother’s whereabouts.

Witty, gritty, and full of cocky hard-edged flair, the second book in the Candace Starr series unearths the well-buried secrets of Candace’s mob family tree, laying bare the roots of her own identity along the way.

Genres: Mystery, Crime

304 pages, Paperback

Published April 6, 2021

About the author

C.S. O'Cinneide (oh-ki-nay-da) is an Edgar nominated writer and a blogger on her website, She Kills Lit, where she features women writers of thriller and noir. Her debut novel, Petra’s Ghost, a dark thriller set on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award in 2019.
She is also the author of the Candace Starr crime series, which follows the hard-boiled antics of a saucy, six-foot-three hitwoman of the same name.
C.S. O'Cinneide lives in Guelph, Ontario with her husband, an Irish ex-pat who remains her constant muse.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starr Sign, the second book in the Candace Starr trilogy, is a tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek irreverent take on hardboiled crime. Candace is a contract killer who has fallen on tough times and now gives lectures to internet groupies who follow her exploits on the dark web. She is also a whiskey-drinking savage who never knows where she will wake up or who she will wake up with, male or female, both being acceptable partners. This volume in the series is all about getting in touch with Candace's past, specifically long-lost relatives and their connections to the Detroit mafia family that her mother had been thrown out of decades earlier. Not to be taken too seriously, irreverent, light, gallows humor, although this sophomore effort is not quite the finished product the first one in the series was.

[Mike Finn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first met Candace Starr, a trying-hard-to-retire-and-not-quite-managing-it hitwoman, in 'The Starr Sting Scale'. Having an assassin as your main character is a tough pitch. I'd expected either to get a fatalistic anti-hero or a witty, lighthearted, Stephanie Plum gone over to the dark side. I got neither.

Candace Starr is a killer and she's good at it. How she got there is as much about pain and betrayal and the criminal world she was born into as it is to do with Candace's innate character but Candace knows you can't blame mommy and daddy forever, especially when daddy was killed by the mob and mommy ran off when you were too young to know what was going on. So, she plays the hand she's dealt, keeps her distance from people, drinks a lot, tries never to show fear and only kills people if she has to or if they really deserve it.

I ended the book thinking 'Wow, what a find!' so when I saw the second book was due, I pre-ordered it. By the time I was two chapters in I decided to kill my plans for the day and spend it reading 'Starr Sign'. It was a well-written rollercoaster lubricated by dry humour, close observation of people and propelled by the energy of a central character who judges everyone harshly, especially herself.

Candace isn't an anti-hero. She's not a good person doing bad things for the right reasons. She tries not to get involved at all if she can help it. But, when family is involved, you've sometimes got to do things. Even if you're tempted to do all the wrong things.

In this story, Candace gets dragged into a confrontation with the Detroit mob as she reluctantly looks for the mother she barely knew on behalf of a half-sister she's only just discovered exists.

The plot is clever. It feints like a skilled boxer and I fell for it every time, so the ending came as a surprise.

All the characters are well-drawn from the psychopathically violent to the instinctively nice. I rather liked that Candace had more difficulty figuring out the two people who were being nice to her (a guy she has sex with and who then got swept up in the action because he likes Candace - go figure and a younger sister with a mean mouth but who still expects to be loved) than the ones who were threatening her (family members mostly).

There's a nice balance between wit, action and character development that kept me engaged.

I'm sure I missed some of the Canadian jokes but I found myself having to resist the urge to highlight something on each page. Even so, I'd like to share my favourite quotes to give you a flavour of being in Candace's head.

Here's Candace at the start of the book, hungover and ready to drink more:

“My daily drinking is just a means to an end. I’m not sure what that end is, but I intend not to be sober when I meet it.” 

Candace's reaction to meeting a vegetarian:

“Vegetarians are supposed to live longer, but I think it just feels that way to them because their life sucks so much without meat.”

Candace going back to the morgue where she's already caused a scene:

"Luckily, the woman at the receptionist desk is also new. The bitch I dealt with last time treated me too much like the white trash criminal that I am. But when I give this new woman my name, she is either too bored or too clueless to acknowledge what kind of person I am. Then again, she might just be nice. I have trouble telling the difference."

And finally, Candace's reaction to having to figure out how to deal with someone who wants to be her friend:

“Friendship, much like family, seems to come with too many attachments — like a vacuum cleaner too complicated to use.”

I had great fun with this book and I'm hoping this is going to be one of those 'book-a-year-for-ten-years' series that becomes part of my annual calendar.

[Erin Ruddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard-boiled humour meets high-octane action in the underbelly of Detroit. O’Cinneide’s razor-sharp wit and taut writing bring a twisted tale of sisterhood, mob hijinks, and unexpected love that will leave you pining for more. This series is not to be missed for the crime noir lovers. Can't wait for more Candace Starr!

[Dominic Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read both of the Candace Starr novels now. Really loved them. Candace is such a great character - she's smart, tough (not hard, though), and has a super sharp wit. A classic noir protagonist. And the plots - there's the action, suspense, and humour you'd expect to find in a great mystery, but there's also thought and, in places, real tenderness. This series has it all.

The publisher's sketch of the plot tells you most of what you need to know about Starr Sign, so I won't add anything more here. I will say that while I think Starr Sign is just as exciting and fun as the first book in the series, I think it's richer too, more ambitious. There's a big issue that O'Cinneide tackles in Starr Sign, and I think she handles it with great sensitivity. And, amazingly, she manages to make it central to the story.

I definitely recommend Starr Sign.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Candace Starr; she's got an anti-hero personality that works great for this type of novel, and she's strong-willed and humorous, which makes for a great combination. I liked Deep as well, a great "yin to her yang" as the author so appropriately put it.

The Stacey Bunnaman character really had me laughing considering my name is Stacey, my boyfriend calls me BunBun, I live in Canada, have smaller boobs and love my mascara! haha -- but I'm definitely not a coward, so that part kinda irked me haha (not really, it was all funny).

The only criticisms I would have for the novel are few, the first being there were a few too many references that just seemed to be placed just to reference other popular things (the Jeopardy reference though was spot on as it worked well with the sentence that followed), but the one thing that really stuck out as no needed was the description on page 244. If you read the book, you'll get what I mean. It was overkill and totally unnecessary. It was pretty "vulgar-ish" (and I'm not a prude by any sense, but it just seemed so off considering the rest of the novel wasn't really as seedy-ish in its descriptions. The last thing would be that the ending kind of veers completely left when you think it's going right, which some people may call an unforeseen twist, but it also kind felt like a lie in the sense that I really didn't think the story was going there I'm referring to both what the family is involved in and who Alex really is .

All in all, though, I'd definitely read another Candace Starr novel, or other novels by C.S. O'Cinneide.

[J.E. Barnard · Rating 4 out of 5]

In STARR SIGN, 2nd in a new crime series from Dundurn Press, 'reitred' hitwoman Candace Starr finds herself in charge of a sulky stranger, the 13-year-old sister she never knew she had.

Their highly erratic mother is missing. To Candace that's not unusual. What is odd is Mom's last known location: the mansion of her estranged grandfather, a man she swore she'd never see again.... The dying head of the vicious Scarpello mob.

Now Candace will have to choose: become a reluctant foster mom to a bad-tempered tween or try to retrieve their real mom from the clutches of her not-so-loving family.

The first thing that attracted me to this novel was the wise ass narrator's unique voice - as distinctive a hard-boiled lead character as any penned by Chandler. The second was the chaotic wake-up scene. They tell beginning writers never to start with a character waking up but there’s always an exception and this one is a boozy doozy of a hangover scene that flaunts the full chaos of Candace's standard non-business operating procedure.

This is assured prose in the hands of a masterful storyteller, taking the reader effortlessly from the mansions of the very rich to the seedy sex-trafficking brothels where gangsters go to let down their guard. If Crime queen Melodie Campbell‘s mafia-family heroine, Gina Gallo, had a goddaughter, it might well be O'Cinneide's Candace Starr, “a wisecracking former hit woman with a stunning array of ways to kill people“.

[Marcus Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the first in the series, The Starr Sting Scale, and this second book did not disappoint. In fact, I think the author is expanding and deepening the main character in this latest novel, making the experience even richer. That being said, reading this is first and foremost a lot of action-packed fun, full of bad guys and wisecracks and laugh out loud moments. A new and fresh take on the hard-boiled genre. Highly recommended.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty entertaining, gritty tale. The main character is quite unique and there are a few memorable bit players here. It's dark, and pretty fast paced and has a couple of humorous moments. Recommended for mystery fans that like a gutsy female lead. I missed the first book, so I'll have to circle back.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

[Shannon Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't get enough of this character. Candace Starr is hilarious, and there's never a dull moment when she's around. This time she's in Detroit looking for her mother in the Detroit mafia, all with a computer geek and a 13 year-old half sister in tow. Just loved it.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wizard with words, is C.S. O'Cinneide. The story flows along smoothly and I just don't want to stop reading. Appealing characters.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had dancing between laughing out loud at Candace's antics and heart pounding worry for the situations the character's found themselves in! I highly recommend this series!

[Valerie Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

This started out interesting enough with an intriguing main character but there were too many small things that bothered me throughout and then the ending/reveal was just a mess and seemed incredibly problematic to me. No spoilers but I was very disappointed with how this played out. Small things that bothered me: the characters kept saying each other's names all the time for no reason and it was really annoying and made everyone sound slightly perturbed even when they weren't, Candace. Also, the main character is pretty judgemental for being an ex-hitwoman and a highly functioning alcoholic. There were some typos with quotation marks which made it hard to follow the dialogue--and it didn't happen just once or twice; it was enough that it bothered me and it felt sloppy. Finally, and this is more personal preference, but there was some depth missing in the world-building and character development. It had a bit of a sitcom feel to it, the tone irreverent, which might have worked if there was a little more meat for me to chew on in terms of character. Anyway, a book that just didn't hit the mark for me.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book that I read due to the Edgar nomination and a good example of why I read from the list. I probably never would have given this ex-assassin turns detective a chance, but I’d have been missing out on a light but entertaining read. The plot strains credulity more than a bit, but just go along for the ride and you night enjoy it

[Julie Trapp · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 These days former contract killer Candace Starr is only responsible for her bar tab. Until her half-sister shows up desperate to find their mother, Angela, who went missing while visiting her family of Detroit mobsters, and suddenly Candace is embroiled in her deadliest assignment ever. [amazon synopsis]

Enjoyed the book. Have not read #1, but will get it from library.

[Merritt Burstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second in series. Protagonist is descendant of a mob family and used to be a hitman before going legit.