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
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
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