A terrifyingly detailed, engrossing tale about what happens when the judicial hammer comes down.
In this debut legal novel, an innocent Wall Street executive becomes the subject of a misguided criminal investigation.
New York, 2012. Emma Simpson, the manager of the Manhattan office of the hedge fund Otis Capital, dashes off an email before leaving work for the day. It’s a routine missive encouraging the members of her team to follow the company’s document retention policy. Then she drives home to her husband and two children on their Hudson Valley farm. One year later, Otis Capital is the target of an insider trading investigation conducted by the United States Attorney’s office, and Emma—without realizing it—has become its primary person of interest. Word comes down that she needs to lawyer up. “Did she really need her own big-shot defense lawyer?” wonders Emma. “The company already had a very expensive law firm with a bunch of former federal prosecutors handling the subpoena. Was there something they weren’t telling her?” And after all, she didn’t do anything wrong. Regardless, Emma finds herself in the sights of two ambitious federal prosecutors—one on the fast track to a prominent career and one afraid that he isn’t—and it might not matter who, if anyone, is actually guilty. The wheels of justice are in motion, and Emma is trapped directly in their path. Shapiro’s prose is clean and fluid, capturing the intricacies of finance law and the emotional states of her characters with equal clarity: “Emma stared at the empty yellow pad in front of her and tapped her pencil on it repeatedly. She felt numb and disconnected from her surroundings. It was as if she had just discovered she’d been living in a simulation for the past forty-five years with no ability to control a destiny that was simply the product of algorithms in someone else’s computer program.” The author demonstrates a convincing familiarity with Wall Street and financial prosecution, and the characters, even the minor ones, are memorably constructed. Emma has frustratingly little control over her own story, which robs the book of some of its potential dynamism but illustrates for readers how powerless an innocent person often is before the law.
A terrifyingly detailed, engrossing tale about what happens when the judicial hammer comes down.Pub Date: March 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63730-640-6
Page Count: 278
Publisher: New Degree Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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