Gritty little gems.
A collection of six short stories about crimes both planned and accidental, the collision of dreams and reality, and the things people do for love.
John Highland, for example, faces a lifetime in prison. But if he can do one “Final Score” before turning himself in, at least he can set up his beloved wife for the rest of her days. His plan is impossible to pull off, which is even more reason to do it—a brilliant finale to his criminal career. Another tale takes the reader to Rhode Island, where liquor sales are banned on Sundays. One liquor store maintains a secret “Sunday List” of thirsty patrons and their liquid requirements to get them through the Lord’s Day. Some stories are more serious—a drunk kid kills a young woman in a DUI and is headed to prison. But the kid’s cousin, a cop, worries he may not survive long in the general population. If only the kid could get assigned to the “North Wing,” where a mob boss prisoner protects its inmates. “True Story” is sharp, funny, and one hundred percent dialogue. Guys swap wacky crime stories in a diner. A sample: “Listen—Angela, for all her fine qualities, was no Rose Scholar, either.” But then in “The Lunch Break,” Dave is hired to watch over the spoiled actress Brittany McVeigh and make sure she shows up on set sober and on time. She is only 5-foot-3, but “bad things come in small packages” and she’s a “drunken, drug-addled, promiscuous little diva” who claims she’s being stalked. In the final tale, “Collision,” life is darn near perfect for an upwardly mobile white family of three. Brad McAlister is a highly talented hotel manager. Upper management invites him and his wife to a fancy restaurant and offers him his dream promotion. But in a squeal of tires in the parking lot, their lives change forever. Will the McAlisters’ deep love for each other survive? Each of these stories has clever plotting and sharp dialogue, a hallmark of all the author’s work. Winslow had previously announced his retirement, but maybe that collided with his love of writing.
Gritty little gems.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9780063450424
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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