A novel with appealing characters and a good setup but a general lack of action.
An insurance investigator looks into a large number of diamond burglaries in Massachusetts and encounters danger in Norton’s mystery.
Cambridge resident Amy Lynch is the senior claims manager for the New England Casualty and Indemnity insurance company, and she has a situation on her hands. There’s been a spate of jewelry thefts all over the state, with the thieves focusing primarily on diamonds and high-end gemstones. Amy and her colleagues Peggy and Tiffany contact various agencies they have contracts with while investigating the uptick in burglaries, and they find that some of the insurance agents are cagey or downright rude. But the fact that an insurance agent was recently killed in an apparent mugging, coupled with Amy’s receiving a cryptic phone call from fellow insurance agent Tom Foye (“whatever you do, don’t call me back. That would be too dangerous….Sorry to sound so mysterious, but I don’t know what else to do”), increases the feeling that these thefts are more complicated than they initially appear. Norton’s latest installment in her Amy Lynch Investigation series features accessible prose and likable characters, and it benefits from the fact that mysteries set in the insurance industry are relatively rare. The story opens strongly, with a stealth murder from the perspective of the killer, and Norton flows easily from that point to set up the main plot. From there, however, the tale often stagnates; a significant part of the book consists of conversations between Amy and her boyfriend, her co-workers, or her company’s insurance agents, which move the story forward but lack excitement and often feel repetitive. Indeed, little of interest occurs until nearly halfway through the story, when Amy has a run-in with a creepy stranger while walking her dog.
A novel with appealing characters and a good setup but a general lack of action.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: June 18, 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
High-concept and highly entertaining.
Fiction writers compete to finish a famous author’s abandoned novel.
Seven writers, all but one published, have received invitations to spend the weekend with crime novelist Arthur Fletch, the world’s most successful author, on his private island off the coast of Scotland. When they arrive at his cliffside castle, they expect to take part in one of the literary salons for which Fletch is famous; instead, they’re greeted by his agent, who informs them that Fletch is dead. Why has there been nothing about this in the press? Because “there are some…loose ends that must be tied up first.” Fletch has left his eagerly anticipated final novel unfinished, so the agent has summoned the writers to the island for a competition: One of them will get to complete Fletch’s book. As premises go, this one’s a humdinger, courtesy of fantasy writer V.E. Schwab and YA author Cat Clarke, here joining forces as Clarke. The story contains an amusing throughline about the indignity of being an uncelebrated novelist; as the agent tells the assembled writers, the contest winner will receive both cash and something equally valuable: “a way out of the midlist.” The novel’s wandering perspective allows each writer to vent their private frustrations, especially with the publishing industry and with the book world’s genre hierarchy (the YA writer among the competitors understands that she and the romance writer are “supposed to support each other against the general snobbishness of the other genres”). Readers who have come for the crimes and the twists, both of which are plentiful, might grow impatient with all the characters’ backstories, but these readers will likely warm to the shop talk, which at its funniest plays like a kvetchy midlist-writers’ support group.
High-concept and highly entertaining.Pub Date: April 7, 2026
ISBN: 9780063444614
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
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