An entertaining and edifying crime drama.
In this novel, a lowly zoo worker in Ukraine gets inadvertently pulled into a criminal conspiracy that endangers his life.
Yuri Yavlinsky works as a menial laborer at the Kyiv Zoo—it’s not the most glamorous job, but he loves the animals and is an aspiring artist. Unfortunately, due to the zoo’s dire financial straits, Yuri is fired. Then he is charged with an inexplicable case of tax evasion. According to the government, he is the director of the Global Opportunities fund and owes about $30 million in tax bills, which he is accused of criminally dodging. As it turns out, Yuri sold his passport to make ends meet, and his identity was appropriated by a massive money-laundering conspiracy orchestrated by Viktor Raskolnovitch, a powerful and brutal oligarch. Yuri is convinced by his lawyer, Dora Osatinskaya, known for her crusades against government corruption, to use his identity to obtain financial records regarding this drug and money-laundering operation that implicate the highest levels of government. Yuri is successful and becomes obsessed with not only procuring more documentary evidence, but also looting the illegal organization’s coffers. Hoffman artfully begins with an inventively comic premise and from there constructs a complex and nuanced account of corruption in Ukraine. Raskolnovitch explains it plainly and powerfully: “Ukraine is very dangerous. Many scores to settle. Many gangs. There are powerful crime families. Some control ports, shipping, cars. Some liquor. Some prostitutes. Everyone wants to control politics.” The author deftly ties the briskly paced plot to the real political turbulence in Ukraine and paints an endearing tableau of the romance that blossoms between Yuri and Dora. While the story as a whole has a whiff of the fantastical about it, its ultimate implausibility doesn’t undermine its dramatic energy. For those readers in search of an intelligently conceived portrayal of contemporary Ukraine as well as a gripping tale of political intrigue, this is an enticing option.
An entertaining and edifying crime drama.Pub Date: March 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-38766-6
Page Count: 438
Publisher: Cutting Edge Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
The novel offers mystery aplenty, but at its core, there is a deep and compassionate humanity.
Two old friends, relationship forged in fire and trauma, find themselves at the center of a murder mystery.
Frida Nilsen and Gabriel Miller are staying at the Ara, a comfortable desert hotel in Escalante, Utah, trying to decide whether both of them are ready to participate in a documentary about some mysterious point in their shared past. Late at night, Frida is standing on their suite’s private patio, smoking, when she overhears a fight between wealthy tabloid tycoon William Brenner and his young, glamorous wife, Sabrina. The next day, Sabrina’s body is found, her head caved in. When Frida tells the cops about the couple’s argument, William is arrested, but hours later, he returns to the Ara and seems to have both Frida and Gabriel in his sights. It turns out he recognizes Gabriel from a scandal 10 years prior, when his wife, Annie, went missing and was then discovered dead. Gabriel was never charged in her death, but papers like William’s had a field day stalking him and posting articles and photos that suggested his guilt. But unbeknownst even to William Brenner, Frida and Gabriel share a bond that’s deeper and darker than Annie’s death. They were born into a cult run by a charismatic dirtbag named Émile. Though they aren’t related by blood, this shared childhood and teenage trauma made them as close as siblings, and when they escaped, they had only each other. While Frida remains the narrator, chapters alternate back and forth between the present day and the past, offering a slow reveal from their childhood to their escape from the cult and the difficult years of adjusting to the real world. Michallon does incredible work building both characters and tension; Frida’s self-awareness and vulnerability clash with her strength and even hardness, but that’s what trauma has wrought. As Michallon poignantly writes, “This is who we are.…We start over together. Again. And again.”
The novel offers mystery aplenty, but at its core, there is a deep and compassionate humanity.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593802762
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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