A crafty murder mystery in the multihued form of an urban symphony.
A disquieting and savage era of not-so-benign neglect of at-risk Black New Yorkers during the Reagan years is evoked with poignant warmth and unflinching precision.
It’s the middle of the Morning-in-America 1980s and the era’s go-go financial opulence is an unfounded rumor in East Harlem, where the crack epidemic has taken hold along with its attendant crime wave and debilitating malaise. One very early morning in October 1985, Matilda “Twin” Johnson, a lifelong El Barrio resident and self-styled “roaming soul” who is “almost six feet tall…[and] a kiss away from three hundred pounds,” comes across the body of 12-year-old Tyrone Jackson in a pile of garbage. Going against her initial instincts and the stringent demands of her drug-dealing Uncle Manuel, Twin notifies the police. Tyrone’s mother, Anita, a military widow and postal worker, is devastated and determined to solve his murder with help from her “crazy” friend Wanda, whose own son Daryl is more prone to trouble with the NYPD than Tyrone. The women are aided by their earnest, ambitious neighborhood pastor, the Rev. Carl Harpon, whose church has been burned down in a suspicious fire. (Daryl is a prime suspect.) Reynolds—author of Knee-Deep in Wonder (2003)—deftly weaves in the lives of other local residents, including the mothers who, like Anita and Wanda, no longer have a church to go to but maintain their solidarity by getting the neighborhood involved in finding out who killed Tyrone, whose own final days are recounted in flashbacks. As the months pass, Anita and Wanda are pulled deeper into despair by false leads, dead ends, and the toxic allure of crack itself, even while their neighbors continue to help search for Tyrone’s killer. Reading this engrossing novel is like watching East Harlem morph into the shape of a shabby but tenacious dreamer imprisoned in a time and place where dreams can be snuffed out as haphazardly as the lives of its young.
A crafty murder mystery in the multihued form of an urban symphony.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780593316863
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
SEEN & HEARD
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