A moody, sobering exploration of how justice can falter when a community looks away.
Allan’s novel chronicles a Midwestern family tragedy.
The story charts the disappearance and death of 7-year-old Jacob Hawkins and the subsequent accusation of his 13-year-old brother, Dominic. Readers follow the case chronologically, beginning in the frantic early hours when Sheriff Tommy Blumhagen mobilizes a community search. Later, dark revelations regarding the seemingly upright Hawkins household emerge. Attorney Mason Mitchell, reluctantly drawn into the case, serves as the narrative’s conscience as he uncovers layers of institutional failure, including teachers who ignored warning signs, clergy who were reluctant to intervene, and law enforcement officers who accepted too many convenient explanations. As Mason works to prevent Dominic from being tried as an adult, the story explores the corrosive effects of religiously rationalized physical abuse and the community’s unwillingness to confront its own complicity in allowing it. Themes of shame, authority, and children bearing the sins of their parents culminate in a wrenching courtroom sequence that questions Dominic’s guilt and the moral responsibilities of every adult who failed him. As a novel of crime and legal proceedings, Allan’s yarn is straightforward, well paced, and soberingly plausible. The author maintains tight control over the procedural elements and legal wrangling. The main characters’ emotional states are conveyed via crisp dialogue that also gives a sharp edge to the legal maneuvering without tipping into melodrama. Mason and the other characters, like legal assistant Lori Bedford, are drawn economically but effectively, their flaws and misjudgments lending the story moral depth. Details about the setting of off-season Door County, Wisconsin, the “Cape Cod of the Midwest”—its wintry rural landscapes, hardboiled, heavy-drinking culture, and small-town political dynamics—feel relevant and lived-in. The narrative occasionally leans on coincidence, but the book’s emotional force and procedural authenticity make it a compelling and thoughtful work of contemporary crime fiction.
A moody, sobering exploration of how justice can falter when a community looks away.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798988241034
Page Count: 393
Publisher: Stretched Studio
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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