An engrossing and thought-provoking, if uneven, courtroom tale.
Two defense attorneys fight a case against long odds.
In this third installment of a legal drama series featuring Star Gwiazda and Tadeusz “Zenko” Luczek, Charns turns to the case of an undocumented immigrant on trial for a rape he did not commit. Lawyers Star and Zenko, childhood sweethearts from Michigan who turned into platonic colleagues in North Carolina, are chosen to serve as public defenders for José Martínez, a Salvadoran immigrant accused of raping his girlfriend’s 9-year-old daughter, Mariposa Garcia. The attorneys face an uphill battle, with a hostile judge making their defense difficult and a victim who is clearly lying about the identity of her attacker. Salvadoran gangs, United States foreign policy, and the shifting political climate all contribute to making it hard for Star, Zenko, and José to find justice. Charns has created a pair of compelling protagonists whose similarities (both suffer from mental illnesses controlled by treatment) and differences (Star is resolutely atheist while Zenko’s Roman Catholicism shapes his worldview) make them effective foils for each other. The dark screwball comedy of their interactions can be a delight to read. (The subtle humor is also evident in an effective scene where Zenko, after a frustrating day in court, takes great pleasure in ordering his dog, named Judge, to sit.) The courtroom scenes are well done, blending technical details with plot development. But other parts of the text are not as well developed: The pacing is uneven and the secondary characters are somewhat flat. Mariposa, in particular, seems uncaring or malicious until her reasons for lying are revealed in the book’s final pages. In addition, the story describes the physical effects of her violent rape in graphic detail, which some readers may find excessive. Still, Charns does a good job of presenting the case as a micro-level instance of the harm done by official incompetence, preconceived notions, and U.S. involvement in El Salvador, allowing the novel to explore broad themes of justice.
An engrossing and thought-provoking, if uneven, courtroom tale.Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2021
ISBN: 979-8790837807
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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