A captivating procedural that explores the nature of statelessness and justice.
In Fertik’s debut crime novel, a Congolese immigrant in Israel works to solve a murder in his community.
Oscar Orleans prefers to spend his Saturday mornings on Tel Aviv’s Bugrashov Beach, drinking Americanos. Since he arrived as a refugee from the Congo 20 years ago, he’s become the informal ambassador between Israeli law enforcement and the various African refugee communities in Tel Aviv, even as he waits for his own permanent residency application to be processed. On one particular Saturday, Oscar is called to an abandoned building on the waterfront to help his old friend, Israeli police inspector Kobi Sambinsky, identify the body of a murdered Black man: “The corpse looked peaceful except for the bullet wound in the stomach and the other one in the head. He was late teens, maybe twenty, rail skinny and probably more than 190 centimeters if he were laid flat, which he wasn’t.” The deceased turns out to be from South Sudan, and he went by the uncommon name Kinga. In an unusual twist, Oscar learns from a pastor serving the Sudanese community that another young man—also named Kinga—arrived and then quickly disappeared in Tel Aviv some eight years ago. It turns out the deceased Kinga had some sort of dealings with one of the city’s notorious mobsters; when the pastor who passes on this information is savagely beaten, Oscar suspects that plenty more violence is yet to come. As he wades deeper into the case, he’s forced to come to terms with his own relationship to Israel, a country that’s sheltered him but never quite accepted him, and reflect on the hidden lives of non-Jewish immigrants who seek asylum there.
Fertik’s writing is elegant and meticulous, particularly in its attention to specific character details: “Oscar sat at a sidewalk table at La Mer beach bar. On days when he wore his work shoes, which was most days, and especially on days when he wore his dress slacks, socks, and shirt for a meeting with his immigration advocate, he would not sit at the tables in the sand but instead up on the concrete.” It’s a slim novel, and although the story does move along at a good clip, it’s hardly a thriller. Instead, the case unfolds quite gradually, with plenty of time for Oscar to enjoy his beachside Americanos and attend shul (he’s a convert to Judaism). Throughout, the balanced prose and Oscar’s conflicted perspective are enough to keep the reader fully engaged. The protagonist’s attraction to the city and its people comes through clearly, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Readers will feel drawn into the rhythms of Tel Aviv, even as they witness incidents of inequality and discrimination. Over the course of the novel, Fertik delves into questions of cultural inclusion and exclusion in modern Israel. One can easily imagine an entire series of mysteries involving Oscar and Kobi delving deeper into the heart of a contemporary, cosmopolitan Israel.
A captivating procedural that explores the nature of statelessness and justice.Pub Date: July 31, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-912818-08-2
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Trans-Atlantic Publications
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: yesterday
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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