A vivid depiction of deep-seated Southern corruption with a troubled yet appealing hero.
A public defender gets charged with the murder of a judge in this legal thriller.
Katazyna “Star” Gwiazda, a public defender in Randleman County, North Carolina, is in jail after she “couldn’t stop myself” laughing upon hearing that the judge presiding over her big trial was killed by a car bomb. She despised this judge, a sexual harasser, but Star’s being charged with his murder is clearly a frame-up. Her client, who blew up a deputy’s car “to avenge the killing of a Lumbee boy by the cops,” is bailed out and will testify that she asked about how to build a bomb. Star soon gets out on bail, too, paid for by an anonymous donor; engages a lawyer; and investigates the strange situation, all while musing about her life (she’s originally from Michigan; both parents are dead; and she’s divorced and bipolar). After a couple more deaths happen, Star is put on trial, facing betrayals by her boss and a co-worker and testimony from her psychiatrist and that shifty former client. North Carolina lawyer Charns has penned previous North Carolina–set courtroom dramas, with Bones of Black Saints (2020) and Barrio Butterfly (2021) featuring Star and her high school sweetheart as a legal duo. It’s difficult to know where this book fits into the series—that sweetheart makes a brief appearance here—but this novel stands on its own as a rollicking tale about complex, fish-out-of-water Star. After dealing with rural shenanigans, the captivating protagonist sometimes wears the hockey helmet her father gave her to block out the world. While the lack of true accountability for some misdeeds is rather surprising, this reflects, as Star at one point notes, “a perverse sense of justice only a public defender could understand.”
A vivid depiction of deep-seated Southern corruption with a troubled yet appealing hero.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2022
ISBN: 9798358148499
Page Count: 187
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
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