A complex tale that introduces two sleuths at the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
A brilliant New Jersey police lieutenant hunts a megalomaniacal murderer in Graysol’s debut procedural.
A masked gunman who calls himself “Alpha” takes engineer Phil Bolton and his law professor wife, Jennifer, hostage in their home in South Orange, New Jersey. A ghostwritten newspaper editorial calls for a justice-reform protest march on Newark City Hall. A dozen masked gunmen, led by a refined villain (reminiscent of Die Hard’s Hans Gruber) who self-identifies as “Righteous,” take control of a prison. Newark cop Ted Carson must determine how these events are linked and figure out what Righteous’ horrific agenda is. Carson soon discovers that his own participation in the case was part of Righteous’ diabolical plan. The mystery of the villain’s actual identity drives this densely plotted thriller. Righteous seems to have anticipated every move that the police make against him, but he makes one crucial error—he kills Bolton, and his brilliant wife swears to avenge his death: “You played with fire, asshole,” she vows, and she forms a risky, rule-breaking partnership with Carson. “You’ve got to treat me like a deputy,” she implores the cop, so that they can work together “to catch this jerk.” Carson is on board, but will he do what needs to be done, whatever the cost? Graysol’s novel benefits from his own experience as an attorney in New York City law firms. Rather than recycle familiar tropes and clichés from countless movies and TV shows, the author instead writes with an authentic sense of how lawyers and detectives really think, as when Carson observes at one point, “Coincidences are usually clues in disguise.” Earlier, after an unproductive witness interview, Graysol has the cop reflect, “When you hit a brick wall with the storyline, scrutinize the words people choose.” Indeed, as this intricate tale unfolds, it turns out that one word, in particular, points to Righteous’ true identity—just one of many clever revelations in this satisfying mystery, which also manages to set the stage for a sequel.
A complex tale that introduces two sleuths at the beginning of a beautiful friendship.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73291-670-8
Page Count: 266
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.
A forsaken family bound by grief still struggles to pick up the pieces 12 years after their mother’s death.
When famous author Gil Coleman sees “his dead wife standing on the pavement below” from a bookshop window in a small town on the southern coast of England, he follows her, but to no avail, and takes a near-fatal fall off a walkway on the beach. As soon as they hear word of his accident, Gil’s grown daughters, Nan and Flora, drop everything and return to their seaside family home in Spanish Green. Though her father’s health is dire, Flora, Gil’s youngest, can’t help but be consumed by the thought that her mother, Ingrid—who went missing and presumably drowned (though the body was never found) off the coast more than a decade ago—could be alive, wandering the streets of their town. British author Fuller’s second novel (Our Endless Numbered Days, 2015) is nimbly told from two alternating perspectives: Flora’s, as she re-evaluates the loose ends of her mother’s ambiguous disappearance; and Ingrid’s, through a series of candid letters she writes, but never delivers, to Gil in the month leading up to the day she vanishes. The most compelling parts of this novel unfold in Ingrid’s letters, in which she chronicles the dissolution of her 16-year marriage to Gil, beginning when they first meet in 1976: Gil is her alluring professor, they engage in a furtive love affair, and fall into a hasty union precipitated by an unexpected pregnancy; Gil gains literary fame, and Ingrid is left to tackle motherhood alone (including two miscarriages); and it all bitterly culminates in the discovery of an irrevocable betrayal. Unbeknownst to Gil and his daughters, these letters remain hidden, neglected, in troves of books throughout the house, and the truth lies seductively within reach. Fuller’s tale is eloquent, harrowing, and raw, but it’s often muddled by tired, cloying dialogue. And whereas Ingrid shines as a protagonist at large, the supporting characters are lacking in depth.
Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-941040-51-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
Thinness aside: riveting stuff, with language so frank it curls your hair.
Debut novel by hip-hop rap artist Sister Souljah, whose No Disrespect(1994), which mixes sexual history with political diatribe, is popular in schools countrywide.
In its way, this is a tour de force of black English and underworld slang, as finely tuned to its heroine’s voice as Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. The subject matter, though, has a certain flashiness, like a black Godfather family saga, and the heroine’s eventual fall develops only glancingly from her character. Born to a 14-year-old mother during one of New York’s worst snowstorms, Winter Santiaga is the teenaged daughter of Ricky Santiaga, Brooklyn’s top drug dealer, who lives like an Arab prince and treats his wife and four daughters like a queen and her princesses. Winter lost her virginity at 12 and now focuses unwaveringly on varieties of adolescent self-indulgence: sex and sugar-daddies, clothes, and getting her own way. She uses school only as a stepping-stone for getting out of the house—after all, nobody’s paying her to go there. But if there’s no money in it, why go? Meanwhile, Daddy decides it’s time to move out of Brooklyn to truly fancy digs on Long Island, though this places him in the discomfiting position of not being absolutely hands-on with his dealers; and sure enough the rise of some young Turks leads to his arrest. Then he does something really stupid: He murders his wife’s two weak brothers in jail with him on Riker’s Island and gets two consecutive life sentences. Winter’s then on her own, especially with Bullet, who may have replaced her dad as top hood, though when she selfishly fails to help her pregnant buddy Simone, there’s worse—much worse—to come.
Thinness aside: riveting stuff, with language so frank it curls your hair.Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02578-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
