An entertaining novel whose bewildering plot is redeemed by punchy writing and appealing characters.
A quickie Las Vegas wedding draws a gay British man into a web of skulduggery in Fanning’s mystery.
It’s 2022, and Kyle Macdonald, a 20-something schoolteacher and small-time actor in Manchester, England, is languishing after a breakup. He barely remembers drunkenly marrying a stranger during a Vegas vacation six years before, which his new husband promised to get annulled. Then Hollywood studio executive Carlton Dupree calls to inform him that he’s still married to famous director Aaron Biedermeier, who’s in a coma. As a result, he must fly to Los Angeles to address murky legal issues. Kyle soon learns that the director has been accused by reality-show has-been Judah Eisenhart of hosting sex parties involving underage actors. Aaron may also have a connection to Tim Larson, a 15-year-old actor who died of a drug overdose—and whom Kyle thinks he saw in Vegas. Afraid that he might be falsely accused of various crimes, Kyle gives his passport to the pale, reptilian Dupree to expedite divorce proceedings. He then meets Noah Winter, the director’s attractive fiancé, who attended the sex parties and was once Larson’s teenage lover. After someone turns up dead, Noah talks Kyle into taking a road trip to Georgia to see someone who may have evidence that will exonerate the schoolteacher. Their transcontinental drive in a camper van, in which they are serenaded by Billy Joel songs, allows their smoldering attraction to segue into dreamy kisses. Fanning makes his yarn overly complicated, with too many titular husbands who have no convincing reason to be married. Fortunately, the characters are well drawn—Kyle’s naïve self-deprecation plays off nicely against Hollywood glitz and sleaze—and the prose is vivid and fun: “Noah is…shirtless, as if posing for a magazine spread. He drank as much as me, so how come he looks fabulous, while only the blood of a newborn stands any chance of reanimating my broken body?” Readers will enjoy Kyle’s meandering quest for a love that outlasts a craps game.
An entertaining novel whose bewildering plot is redeemed by punchy writing and appealing characters.Pub Date: June 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781739290313
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Spring Street Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.
After more than three decades of producing bestselling legal thrillers, Grisham tries his hand at a whodunit.
Eleanor Barnett wants Simon Latch to write her a will. That’s pretty much his job description, since practicing law in Braxton, Virginia, for 18 years hasn’t given him much opportunity to spread his wings. But the case of Netty, as she insists he call her, is different. She’s an 85-year-old widow whose second husband, Harry Korsak, left her with something like $20 million in cash and securities. She has a pair of stepsons, Clyde and Jerry Korsak, she’s determined to disinherit. And she already has a will, a document Wally Thackerman drafted a few weeks ago that basically allowed him, as Simon soon discovers, to pillage her estate. So instead of following his usual procedure and asking his longtime secretary, Matilda Clark, to type out the will, Simon types it himself and has it witnessed without saying anything to her. Of course he’d never do what Wally Thackerman did, but given his poverty, his gambling addiction, and his estrangement from his wife, Paula, whose income is a lot more stable than his own, he wouldn’t mind drawing just a bit on Netty’s wealth. As it happens, his new client turns out to be more trouble than she’s worth, maybe even more trouble than she would’ve been worth to Wally. And when she ends up dying, her death is swiftly identified as murder, with every indication that Simon killed her himself. The whodunit is unremarkable, but Grisham handles the legal complexities of the case with professional finesse and adds a wonderfully poignant portrait of a nothingburger lawyer trying his best to keep things more or less legal.
Everything you’d expect from Grisham, and this time something more.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780385548984
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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