Despite a few hiccups, an attention-grabbing mystery with a quirky cast of characters in a steamy Southern setting.
Money and power lie at the root of this murder mystery as a tangled web of characters seeks to protect a young Gullah child.
Jonah Washington is a victim of neglect and abuse in the broken foster-care system of Beaufort, S.C. After he narrowly escapes a deadly beating from his foster mother, Jonah is taken in by social worker Coral Peters and her daughter Hannah. Determined to right the wrongs done to Jonah, Coral enlists the assistance of her friend, child psychologist Jadah Jimysee, and unknowingly kicks off a surprising chain of events. Suddenly, everyone is interested in Jonah’s whereabouts and well being, from the homeless man on the corner to the wealthiest family in Beaufort. A protective circle forms around Jonah and includes the handsome and unpredictable Jack Claybourn, a man who knew Jonah’s parents and is determined to solve the mystery of their deaths and protect their son at all costs. Murders stack up as various characters, battling their own demons and defeats, are caught up in family politics, societal pressures, and a string of unsolved deaths and violent attacks. Jonah and Jadah are tied to the Gullah community and come alive through Dinsmoor’s dialogue and use of the Gullah language. Other characters, such as Hank, a Shakespeare-spouting homeless man, are uniquely interesting and introduce a lighthearted aspect to a novel that spends much of its time focused on death, violence and abuse. However, Dinsmoor is overly ambitious; the abundance of characters can be unwieldy. Many of the intriguing secondary characters remain underdeveloped, as Dinsmoor glosses their motivations and potential. Alternately, Coral and Jack receive ample time, as the narrative of their potential relationship runs parallel to the story of Jonah and the murders. Yet Jack appears to be a masochistic drunk who can be unbalanced, violent and verbally abusive. The anger and seething resentment that frequently underlie his interactions with Coral give one pause, as if their romance is being shoehorned into a story that clearly isn’t meant to be a fairy tale.
Despite a few hiccups, an attention-grabbing mystery with a quirky cast of characters in a steamy Southern setting.Pub Date: July 11, 2012
ISBN: 9781477505199
Page Count: 448
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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