A tense, claustrophobic detective tale about the toll exacted on people trying to uncover the truth.
Fighting for the innocent might put you on the right side, but it doesn’t mean you’ll be safe.
When the mutilated body of a 7-year-old boy is found in the river of a big city, pollen and other debris on the corpse suggest he comes from a valley far away in a neighboring country. In Osborn’s unsettling debut, a biological anthropologist and her husband—who acts as her forensic team’s assistant, translator, and our narrator—get sent south by their agency to collect plant and mineral samples to confirm the boy’s identity. Their efforts overlap with the gruesome discovery of a mass grave, and the couple’s attempt to go home with the samples gets blocked by the country’s new regime. Why do they care about the child? Who is in the mass grave? Are these deaths somehow related? Osborn keeps a tight leash on the action as the couple seeks answers. They encounter a host of menacing characters in an unnamed country with a violent history that local officials dismiss. (“That is all in the past. It is over. That does not happen in the present time.…We are progressive!”) Conversations and the narrator’s commentary are restrained and opaque, often to a frustrating degree. “What’s happening to us?” the anthropologist demands of someone helping them. “Oh, you’ll need to find that out for yourselves” is all he’ll say. It’s clear Osborn wants readers to feel the same way while the couple searches for the murderer and possible motives. That search involves jungle treks, interrogation rooms, government double talk, and absurd bureaucratic dead ends worthy of Beckett or Kafka. All of this makes the pair burn for justice and feel “increasingly angry, against [their] instincts for self-preservation.” They resist the sensational conclusions of the authorities, locals, and even their superiors that the child was a victim of some strange ritual. Though the body’s dismemberment and objects found among the boy’s things seem to support that theory, the couple insists there’s a more sinister explanation. That insistence might put at risk their jobs, their relationship, and even their lives, but what haunts them more is the thought of giving up: “What are we if we let this go?” That’s a question neither wants to answer in this harrowing, tautly plotted story.
A tense, claustrophobic detective tale about the toll exacted on people trying to uncover the truth.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781954276406
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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