An untaxing period-piece mystery that softens the hard-boiled detective genre with romance.
The assistant to a newspaper agony aunt hires a gumshoe to track down a blackmailer only to find they’ve waded into the thick of murder in 1930s California.
In the latest in the Burning Cove series, set in a seaside resort town, nascent novelist and lucid dreamer Maggie Lodge seeks out PI Sam Sage so he can locate the person who’s threatening her employer. A former cop who lost his job for arresting someone from a wealthy family, Sam is hoping to build his fledgling business and takes on Maggie’s case despite his sense that the dame is hiding something. Soon after, he’s pretending to be her research assistant as they follow a lead to a conference that claims to help people build their psychic powers. Are the conveners the ones who sent the blackmail note, or are they also being blackmailed while running a long con? When an attendee is found dead the first evening, just as Maggie encounters an unpleasant figure from her own past, Maggie and Sam must figure out if the case has gone from petty crime to murder or if it started with another homicide a few years ago. Complicating the situation is the presence of the dream researcher who is obsessed with Maggie’s potential for lucid dreaming. Bodies pile up even as she and Sam embark on an intimate relationship in addition to their professional one. Quick calls on her favorite character types in her latest novel: There's the intrepid heroine and the cynical hero who thaws after the unpredictable partnership with her penetrates his personal barriers. The author’s long-standing interest in paranormal phenomenon like ESP propels the plot toward the eventual discovery of the murderer. There aren’t a lot of surprises for the regular Quick reader, but the metanarrative commentary about storytelling and genre plus the prewar West Coast glamour and noirlike incidents make for an updated gothic with some appeal.
An untaxing period-piece mystery that softens the hard-boiled detective genre with romance.Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-33778-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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
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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