A brooding novel of loyalty and corruption set on Chicago’s South Side.
In Allen’s novel, a low-level politician on the verge of retirement struggles to hold his family together in the aftermath of a murder.
One more election—that’s all Pat Sullivan, precinct captain of Chicago’s 51st Ward, has to make it through. For 32 years, he’s been in charge of curb repair, potholes, snow removal, and turning out votes in his working-class South Side neighborhood. Pat is preparing a final push to re-elect alderman Eddie Byrne, after which he plans to finally retire and move with his wife, Mary, out of the city. Pat’s plans are shattered when he learns that his daughter-in-law Janice has been murdered, and that her husband—Pat’s son Tom—has been arrested as the primary suspect. Pat puts up his house and savings in order to bail Tom out of jail, only for his son to immediately go on the lam. If Pat can’t get Tom into court within 30 days, his life’s earnings will be forfeited—and to top it all off, Mary reveals to him that she’s dying of breast cancer. To save what’s left of his family, Pat must track down Tom and figure out what really happened to Janice. Along the way, he will have to contend with a dogged police detective who’s sure of Tom’s guilt, a reformed drug dealer turned major political donor, and a colorful assortment of lowlifes who could only come from the Windy City. Allen’s conversational prose captures his milieu, particularly the relatively underexplored world of political machine turnout operations. (“The energized crowd started to file out of the hall, milling about in front, most holding literature and flyers to be passed out during the evening to each house in the ward.”) Less a traditional crime yarn than a literary novel with some genre elements, the book will please readers with its strong sense of place and culture.
A brooding novel of loyalty and corruption set on Chicago’s South Side.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798892820882
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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