Insightful perspectives on historical and contemporary bigotry, despite some awkward juxtapositions.
Markowitz’s novel follows two men separated by generations but both facing racism and violence in a rural community.
In 2023, Charlie Levenson has just purchased the old lock-tender’s house along a quaint canal not far from Princeton, New Jersey. With the help of his son Ben, Charlie starts to fix up the dilapidated property, imagining how much his late wife Zoya would have hated it. The welcome from his new neighbors is anything but warm—a gruff stranger gives Charlie a cryptic warning: “Bad things have been known to happen here. You never can tell when bad things might happen again.” In 1933, Abe Dubinski lives in the same house and works as the canal’s last lock-tender before the advent of rail transit. Abe and his family meet Helmut Fischer, a young man who has just arrived in America from Germany and expresses nothing but aggression and menace to his Jewish neighbors. In the present day, Charlie witnesses a dangerous fire and sees a protest explode into violence, bringing him once again in contact with the mysterious stranger and setting him on a scavenger hunt for clues about the man’s identity and his connections with a local right-wing militia—which may have also played a role in his wife’s death. Back in 1933, Abe struggles to keep his family together as Helmut and a group of young Nazis camp out along the canal, targeting the lock-tender’s family. Markowitz’s parallel narratives touch upon several fascinating ideas, including the reach of Nazism—even in rural America—during WWII, the lasting impacts of the January 6 insurrection on today’s world, and the similarities between two time periods each burdened with an oppressive sense of dread. The inclusion of Zoya’s ghostly figure and her own story of coming to America from Iran provides another layer of texture and perspective while also endearing the grieving Charlie to readers. While the two stories share intriguing thematic connections, they can sometimes clash—especially as Charlie’s story ventures into tropes more common of a mystery or thriller. While the alternating timelines fail to cohere into a flowing narrative, Markowitz still offers plenty of sympathetic characters and engaging questions.
Insightful perspectives on historical and contemporary bigotry, despite some awkward juxtapositions.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781685128043
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Level Best - Historia
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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