A compelling courtroom drama that overcomes its limitations.
Two Polish American lawyers defend a Black Latinx activist in this sequel.
In this legal thriller, Charns brings back Star Gwiazda and her law partner, Zenko Luczek, now court-appointed attorneys defending Marcos Salazar Jones against charges of shooting a Durham, North Carolina, police officer. Zenko is certain that the officer shot himself and framed Marcos, a local Black Lives Matter activist. But the lawyer has his doubts about whether the jury will agree, or if the talented but unpredictable Star’s courtroom theatrics will be too much. The tension remains high from jury selection to verdict, with the toppling of a local Confederate statue and vandalism and violence against Star and Zenko making life outside the courtroom just as complicated. The story’s subplots touch on a wide range of topics, from hockey and the Polish American experience—Zenko’s narration often turns to his childhood in Detroit’s Polish community—to the law partners’ histories of mental illness, while keeping a focus on the events taking place inside the courtroom. The narration is cynical and biting (the police officer is “a Robocop Mr. Clean without the earring”; Zenko attributes his success to “Al-Anon, hockey and staying out of bad relationships, not necessarily in that order”) as well as entertaining, keeping the pages turning despite the almost too-detailed courtroom play-by-plays. While the book spends more time on the minutiae of legal practice, precedent, and witness questioning than most in the genre, it does so in a way that feels informative and engaging rather than tedious. The novel does have its limitations. Some typos are distracting (“The smell of lemon-scented bleach, sweat, and sewage envelope us”), and a plot twist on the work’s penultimate page turns the tale’s emotional resolution on its head, cutting into the sense of vindication that dominates to that point. But on the whole, the thriller is a satisfying read, telling a solid story while exploring questions of faith, Whiteness, and relationships and incorporating current events and present-day realities into the framework of a classic fight-the-system tale.
A compelling courtroom drama that overcomes its limitations.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 225
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.
When one woman takes on another’s identity to uncover a crime, they both become suspects in a murder.
Aubrey Price and Camille Bayliss come from different worlds, only crossing paths because of the discovery that Camille’s husband, powerful lawyer Ben Bayliss, is hiding something terrible that affects them both. As the novel opens, Aubrey is driving Camille’s Range Rover, then teetering into a bar on Camille’s high heels, with Camille’s dress and credit cards and a wig that mimics Camille’s hair, pretending to be her because Ben tracks his wife’s every move and expenditure, and Camille wants to create a smokescreen while she sneaks into his office in search of evidence of that unnamed secret. But the scheme goes awry, and the women become each other’s alibis after Camille finds Ben murdered in their home. The first part of the book builds suspense and misdirection well, with Aubrey and Ben’s straight-arrow partner, Hank Landry, serving as first-person observers in some chapters while others track Camille. She’s a wealthy and privileged woman but not a happy one, stuck under the thumbs of her husband and her tyrannical father, Randall Everett, who pretty much runs their small Louisiana town. Aubrey was orphaned as a teen when her parents died in a car crash and has proudly fended for herself ever since, coming to depend on her four roommates, who have become friends. But as the cast of characters grows, it seems as if almost everyone in town has a motive for killing Ben, and the piling up of suspects and movements among different timelines can sometimes be confusing. And it all comes to a frustrating end when, after a whole school of red herrings, the solution to Ben’s murder arrives out of far left field.
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780593834459
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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