THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

Driven by one of her trademark premonitions come horrifyingly true, Julia Pritzker leaves her adopted home in Tuscany to return to her Pennsylvania roots.

No sooner has Julia, seized by a sudden urge to phone her best friend, Courtney Horan, had a shattering vision than Courtney, still on the line, discovers the body of her grandmother, Kay Patterson, shot to death in her home in rural Pennsylvania. Naturally, Julia drops everything and books a flight to Courtney’s side. Who on earth would want to kill a Black octogenarian widely loved for her kindness and charity? Once the police find the presumed murder weapon—a ghost gun produced by a 3D printer—in the woods outside Kay’s house, they suspect Courtney, and Julia suspects the police. When homicide detective William Kowalski arrests Courtney, Julia decides his case is so weak that he must be racist or corrupt rather than just stupid; the only question is how far in the department the rot has spread. Back in Italy, there’s another emergency: Julia’s husband, library director Gianluca Moretti, is suspected of child abuse when their 3-year-old daughter, Leni, lapses into a mysterious grief and begs Julia to come back. But Julia, who’s already begun to suspect that Leni may have inherited some of her psychic powers, refuses and resolves to stay the course. Readers impatient with the endless wind-down of the mystery of Kay’s murder, which turns out to be the tip of a vast terrorist conspiracy, will be relieved to learn that the accusations against Gianluca are wrapped up with all due haste. The result is an ambitious whodunit, a less satisfying cold case, and a domestic drama so familiar it’s practically heartwarming.

Warning: This doesn’t actually change all that much.