Merrill pulls off a stylistic balancing act, making for a compelling read.
A journalist’s study of paranoia sends him headlong into a thriller.
It takes some time to see what Merrill is doing in this novel, which opens with its narrator covering a political rally on a small island off the coast of Maine and winds up many miles away, both literally and figuratively. The narrator, who shares a name with the author, observes firsthand the effects of paranoia on the populace: When he interviews people at the rally, they use buzzwords familiar from QAnon. He soon becomes interested in a neurobiologist named Dr. Rala Veruza, who’s engaged in the “study of cultural immunology,” which involves the idea that “humans form superorganisms, living entities comprised of many individuals.” Just as people can be vaccinated against disease, the thinking goes, it might be possible to inoculate an entire community or society against disinformation. Dr. Veruza goes missing early in the novel, prompting the narrator to contact several of her acquaintances and colleagues in order to find her, including a Hungarian academic, a performance artist in Prague, and an insurance investigator whose own work experience helps inform the narrator’s search. Gradually, the narrator begins to wonder if Dr. Veruza’s disappearance is the work of malicious actors, including an all-powerful tech company known as the Conglomerate. This is a heady book, with big ideas about society, politics, academia, and art in the mix, but Merrill finds a good balance between the high concept and the visceral thrills. The result is a literary work that recalls the writings of both Tom McCarthy and David Grann. It’s an unlikely combination, but also an effective one.
Merrill pulls off a stylistic balancing act, making for a compelling read.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9798991122047
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Under the BQE
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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