Masterful in its structure and pacing; a great read.
A taut thriller linking war crimes, politics, and police work.
Powers returns to the subject of war and its collateral damage that he first studied in The Yellow Birds (2012), an acclaimed debut published after his own Army service in Iraq. A Shout in the Ruins (2018) followed fallout from the Civil War and slavery. In the new book, the pivotal character is Arman Bajalan, a refugee from Iraq living in the U.S., who worked as an interpreter for the American military in Mosul in 2004. He finds a dead man in a suit lying on a Norfolk, Virginia, beach. He carries no ID, and the labels are missing from his clothes. The police team is led by the oddly named Det. Catherine Wheel. A second narrative line concerns journalist Sally Ewell, whose brother was killed in Iraq and whose current reporting centers on Decision Tree, a private military contractor on the verge of a $2 billion government deal if it can get past a congressional investigation of its roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. The two narratives intersect through Bajalan, who filmed a massacre of unarmed Iraqi university students by Decision Tree operatives. A week later an assassination attempt killed Bajalan’s wife and child and had him seeking a U.S. immigrant visa. It soon becomes clear that he’s still a target. Powers has a strong female character in Det. Wheel—a cool professional mercifully free of the dire flaws with which thriller writers tend to baste their lead cops. A couple of older civilians familiar with guns come in handy when the mercenaries visit. Powers has a clearly negative message about military contractors and the business of war, starting with the epigraph (“War is a racket...”), but there’s a moral ambivalence to the novel’s resolution that should spark debate.
Masterful in its structure and pacing; a great read.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9780316507127
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.
With only a month left until the world ends due to a swiftly approaching black hole, Don and Rodney, a retired gay couple, road-trip from Maine to Washington to spend their final days with their son.
After reports that a planet-swallowing black hole is making its way toward Earth, Rodney and Don—who have been together for 40 years and survived everything from homophobia to the HIV crisis—decide to pack their belongings into an RV, say goodbye to their neighbors, and travel from Camden, Maine, to Washington to uphold a promise to spend their final days with their son. They can’t wait any longer, since there’s already chaos around the country: “Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened.” As they make their way west across the country, they encounter fellow travelers ranging from close-knit families to free-spirited hippies, some of whom have come to terms with the impending end of the world and others who haven’t. While the story seems to be asking readers what they would do if they had 30 days left to live, and reflects on what different kinds of acceptance might look like in the face of unavoidable tragedy, it loses some of its poignancy in a series of thinly padded monologues about the meaning of life. Clearly intended to pack an emotional punch, it’s failed by an abrupt ending, and the way the journey’s mystery—which will be obvious to many readers—is revealed by an info dump in the last chapter.
An existential crisis that steps on its own final moments.Pub Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781250881236
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2026
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