A topical but sometimes stodgy thriller about the hunt for a human trafficker.
A survivor of human trafficking tries to escape her old life.
At the heart of this novel by Epps is a young woman named Ava Rose Anderson who spent years in the clutches of charismatic figure and nefarious human trafficker Jeffrey Hoffman, the book’s Jeffrey Epstein–like villain. “Hoffman had held her captive for just over four years until she escaped that life at eighteen,” the narrative reads. “In the first few years of her escape, she’d had as much therapy as she could tolerate.” But the anxieties and dark thoughts of her time sealed in Hoffman’s “coterie of crass” still haunt her as the story opens, years later, when she’s living comfortably in Florida with her boyfriend, Caleb, in a quiet life that seems every bit as wholesome as her previous life was sordid. At one point, Ava’s friend Piper, who’d also been trafficked by Hoffman, joins Ava in reflecting on the life they’re both hoping they’ve left behind. “You just do it ‘cause it starts off fun and exciting,” she reflects. “And everyone is rich and offering you nice things and amazing places to go, and all you have to do for it is, is that.” Epps’ narrative shifts back and forth in time, at some points ranging to years past in order to show Hoffman at the peak of his power (and Ava in the depths of her misery) and, at other points, ranging to the present, when Hoffman is disgraced and dead but his former top lieutenant Maxime Bredwell is alive, at large, and generally unrepentant (“No one would have dreamed that she loved a good grift,” readers are told. “She’d laugh to herself in bored moments at how utterly naive people could be”). When Ava decides to find the elusive Maxine and confront her, the narrative takes off.
Epps writes this story as a fictionalized version of what might have happened if one of the young human trafficking victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his assistant, Ghislaine Maxwell, had been able to take matters into her own hands. The novel effectively depicts the world of Jeffrey Hoffman as well as the psychology of someone like Maxime Bredwell, who’s under close surveillance by an experienced retiree from the military. The decision to continually toggle the novel’s chronology to tell Ava’s and Hoffman’s overlapping stories is a risky one, and some of the dangers are obvious here. The shifts often feel more distracting than dramatically effective. Another gripe is the failure of Ava to ignite as a dramatic creation. Even when she’s upending her settled life and beginning to take major chances in her quest to right some wrongs, she seems fairly flat on the page. “Self-pity threatened to overwhelm her project,” readers are told in a typical characterization of Ava’s mental state. “Untethered and so completely unsettled, she doubted.” Epps has his eye on a larger revenge plot, but the novel’s action builds too slowly.
A topical but sometimes stodgy thriller about the hunt for a human trafficker.Pub Date: April 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-57-889737-0
Page Count: 231
Publisher: Mess Hall Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 3, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.
This is wizard Harry Dresden’s yearlong mourning period for Karrin Murphy, the woman he loved.
If you keep upping your protagonist’s powers throughout a series, then you must balance the scales by increasing the number and strength of their enemies—as well as seriously messing with their personal life. Over the course of the Dresden Files, Harry Dresden, Chicago PI and now one of the most powerful wizards in the world, thought his first love was dead (she wasn’t), sacrificed his half-vampire girlfriend on an altar to save their child, lost another girlfriend when they learned she’d been mind-controlled into their relationship, bound himself into servitude as the Fae Queen Mab’s Winter Knight, and, for the length of an entire book, thought he himself was dead (he wasn’t). But nothing has hit quite as hard as the death of Karrin Murphy, the former police lieutenant who was his quasi-partner, friend, and, after a slow burn across many books, lover. Chicago is in a terrible state following a battle with Ethniu the Titan and her Fomor army, and Harry is doing his best to confront the monsters, dark magic, and anti-supernatural prejudice running wild amid the slowly rebuilding city. He’s also trying to save his half brother Thomas from two different death sentences, train a new apprentice, and juggle a relationship with Thomas’ half sister Lara, the dangerously seductive vampire Queen Mab is forcing him to marry. But he’s doing all this while nearly crushed by grief that threatens his judgment and disturbs his control over his magical powers. Butcher really makes you feel the dark, depressive state Harry exists in as well as the effect it’s having on his friends. Despite all that happens in it, this book is a pause as well as a setup for the series’ planned conclusion, an epic conflict with the eldritch creatures known as “the Outsiders.” It’s a tough, redemptive pause that could be a real drag, but thankfully, it’s not, because Butcher shows balance, too: Even as the crises pile up, so do the help and goodwill from unexpected sources.
The series’ snarky noir vibe might be dwindling, but there’s something of substance in its place.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593199336
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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