An imaginative and immersive literary mystery.
A failed poet must solve a puzzle left by a famous poet of the same name in McLaughlin’s bookish mystery novel.
There are two women named Mary Irene Jones: One is a world-renowned yet reclusive Irish poet; the other—who goes by Mimi—is a decidedly nonfamous American poet 25 years Mary Irene’s junior. Ironically, Mimi now works as an adjunct professor at the same Philadelphia-area university where Mary Irene once taught. (Indeed, Mimi only got her job at said university because someone in human resources thought she was Mary Irene.) When a box of Mary Irene’s unpublished manuscripts arrives at Mimi’s house, then, she isn’t exactly surprised…though she is taken aback when a police detective shows up a few days later. It seems Mary Irene has gone missing—bank accounts emptied, car vanished, calls straight to voicemail—but she’s left a letter making it very clear that she wants Mimi, specifically, to “safeguard” her manuscripts “as [she] would [her] own.” The poems seem to hold clues to a mystery that Mary Irene wants solved—and not just the question of her whereabouts. With the help of the handsome detective Michael Quinn, Mimi must delve deeply into the verses of her famous namesake, attempting to figure out the inscrutable woman—and, along the way, to figure out herself as well. McLaughlin’s elegant prose weaves a neat literary mystery in which Mimi must bring her scholastic sleuthing skills to bear on Mary Irene’s enigmatic lines. “I turned the page and saw a date, also in MIJ’s handwriting: May 1, 1974,” Mimi narrates after perusing one piece of juvenilia. “She would have been thirteen years old, but that didn’t ring quite true. The words ached in a much older voice, carrying a weariness that seemed seasoned much longer.” Balancing the bookishness is the budding romantic tension between Mimi and Detective Quinn. This is a cozy mystery for those who love the printed word, one that cleverly plays with the relationship between author and reader and the division between literature and real life.
An imaginative and immersive literary mystery.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781951967130
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Celestial Echo Press
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
High-concept and highly entertaining.
Fiction writers compete to finish a famous author’s abandoned novel.
Seven writers, all but one published, have received invitations to spend the weekend with crime novelist Arthur Fletch, the world’s most successful author, on his private island off the coast of Scotland. When they arrive at his cliffside castle, they expect to take part in one of the literary salons for which Fletch is famous; instead, they’re greeted by his agent, who informs them that Fletch is dead. Why has there been nothing about this in the press? Because “there are some…loose ends that must be tied up first.” Fletch has left his eagerly anticipated final novel unfinished, so the agent has summoned the writers to the island for a competition: One of them will get to complete Fletch’s book. As premises go, this one’s a humdinger, courtesy of fantasy writer V.E. Schwab and YA author Cat Clarke, here joining forces as Clarke. The story contains an amusing throughline about the indignity of being an uncelebrated novelist; as the agent tells the assembled writers, the contest winner will receive both cash and something equally valuable: “a way out of the midlist.” The novel’s wandering perspective allows each writer to vent their private frustrations, especially with the publishing industry and with the book world’s genre hierarchy (the YA writer among the competitors understands that she and the romance writer are “supposed to support each other against the general snobbishness of the other genres”). Readers who have come for the crimes and the twists, both of which are plentiful, might grow impatient with all the characters’ backstories, but these readers will likely warm to the shop talk, which at its funniest plays like a kvetchy midlist-writers’ support group.
High-concept and highly entertaining.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780063444614
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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