A superb procedural thriller with an always entertaining and appealing cast.
Tokyo police detectives investigate a case that’s either a suicide or a homicidal act of revenge in this fourth installment of a mystery series.
Detective Hiroshi Shimizu’s job as a forensic accountant in Tokyo’s homicide department keeps him busy. But despite his preference for working from his office, the chief sends Hiroshi to check out a mangled body on a sidewalk. The victim, Shigeru Onizuka, took a 20-story plummet off the Senden Infinity building where he worked. He may have cut through the fencing on the roof, but nothing at the scene points to a potential murder. It turns out Onizuka was a rather appalling boss; his harassment and overworking of a female employee three years ago drove her to a fatal jump off the same roof. Hiroshi and fellow detectives focus on the woman’s family, including her parents, her best friend, and her American boyfriend, a jazz musician in Japan. But there’s no shortage of suspects, as several employees brought complaints against Onizuka for his incessant bullying and mistreatment. He was also a man harboring countless dark secrets, such as the possibility that he was guilty of embezzlement, a crime right up Hiroshi’s alley. One thing the detectives definitely know is that Senden is a powerful company that nearly ruined a lawyer’s career for filing a suit against it. If Senden’s executives don’t want authorities nosing around, they may resort to sinister or even lethal deeds. And as the chief wants this case closed quickly, Hiroshi and the others are running out of time.
This latest volume continues Pronko’s consistently engrossing series. While this book isn’t quite as suspenseful as the preceding ones, it presents a remarkable mystery. For example, individuals with understandable motives crowd the suspect list, as the dead man was a ruthless villain, and the killer may actually be one of his victims. Hiroshi and other detectives make a welcome return, from chain-smoking Takamatsu to former sumo wrestler Sakaguchi, whose previous injury forces him to endure a knee brace that’s too small. With the murder mystery underway, the author effectively underscores women’s mistreatment in the workplace, not necessarily only in Japan. Male bosses criticize female employees for how they dress and pressure them to have drinks after work and to put in overtime. Hiroshi is even surprised that his live-in girlfriend, Ayana, suffered similar abuse at her bank job years ago. As the story progresses, the Senden roof becomes a recurring setting; detectives reexamine the scene or meet people there for questioning. It’s also an ideal spot for Pronko to display his crisp, noirish prose: “Takamatsu ground out his cigarette, ducked under the tape, poked his head out the V” in the fence, “and leaned forward to look at the black tar on the outer ledge, where it sloped down to a rain gutter, no fence or rail, and beyond only air and gravity.” The final act, which boasts a convincing and satisfying wrap-up, is sure to leave readers eagerly awaiting Hiroshi’s next case or seeking out previous series installments.
A superb procedural thriller with an always entertaining and appealing cast.Pub Date: July 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-942410-25-6
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Raked Gravel Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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