A page-turning tale that takes an unexpected journey through law, history, and retiree living.
Wade offers an offbeat legal mystery set in a retirement community.
At the story’s outset, 96-year-old Matthew “The Professor” Collins is recently deceased. He earned his nickname for having written a New York Timesbestseller about the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The “Meck Dec,” as it’s often called, is a fabled document, allegedly signed in North Carolina in 1775, that declared independence from England before the Declaration of Independence of 1776. But although the existence of the Meck Dec is up for dispute, Collins’ death is not—nor is the fact that his beloved granddaughter, Lori, seems to have been mysteriously removed from his will. Collins’ best friend and fellow Independence Retirement Community resident, Chuck Yeager Alexander, suspects something is amiss, but he knows little about what it takes to contest a will. Enter new “Indie” resident Craig Travail, a recently retired trial lawyer. He and Yeager—along with the smart and practical Harriet Keaton, another resident—band together to help Lori. This caper ably combines such unlikely material as retirement community complaints, courtroom technicalities, and a disputed historical document that’s nonetheless referenced on North Carolina’s state flag. The tale drags a bit at the outset; for instance, early on, Yeager explains his various nicknames for Indie residents to Travail (such as “Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third”), but they aren’t particularly funny or inventive. Things pick up, however, after the legal maneuvering kicks into gear. A contested will might be an age-old plot device, but this narrative gives it an uncommon and engaging level of scrutiny. The courtroom scenes are similarly compelling, as tension builds with every witness called to the stand. Later events take some wild, action-heavy turns, but it’s the rule of law that brings out the best in Travail and his gang.
A page-turning tale that takes an unexpected journey through law, history, and retiree living.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7363055-8-4
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Lystra Books & Literary Services, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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