Gigl uses her debut novel as a template, with diminishing returns.
A defense attorney takes on sex traffickers and child pornographers.
When a detective asks Erin McCabe to meet with a young woman accused of murder, he explains that he has two reasons. One is that, despite her admission of guilt, the detective thinks Ann Parsons is innocent. The second is that Ann is, like Erin, transgender. Her decision to represent Ann will end up putting Erin, her law partner, and her boyfriend in grave danger. And, as the action unfolds, she will also have to deal with her mother’s breast cancer and the knowledge that her boyfriend’s family won’t accept her. The setup is quite similar to that of Gigl’s debut, By Way of Sorrow (2021), as is the mix of legal thriller with interpersonal drama. Erin is an engaging protagonist surrounded by well-rounded secondary characters. But the emotional stakes here are less compelling, and the legal case is unsatisfying. In By Way of Sorrow, Erin was dealing with the fact that her brother and her father rejected her after she came out as trans, and she was negotiating a romance with a man who wasn't sure he could deal with her past. Watching Erin react to her mother’s illness slows the plot of this second book without revealing anything new about the protagonist and, here, that same boyfriend is almost too good to be true. The bad guys are also implausible. The idea of powerful people exploiting children is all too believable, but there’s something ridiculous about evil geniuses whose only response to a perceived threat is to just murder everybody. The emotional realism and the cartoon violence don’t fit together. The biggest issue, though, is the amount of information—about Ann Parsons and another key character—that Gigl keeps under wraps as the narrative unfolds. The reader never sees Erin asking—or even formulating—obvious and important questions about her client. To the extent that there are big reveals, they feel artificial and insufficient.
Gigl uses her debut novel as a template, with diminishing returns.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2828-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
If you love good crime writing but aren’t familiar with Winslow’s work, read this trilogy in order.
The dramatic conclusion to the trilogy about two New England crime families begun in City on Fire (2022) and City of Dreams (2023).
Near the end of his journey, multimillionaire Danny Ryan watches a casino implode in a mushroom cloud of dust and muses about his life’s implosions: “The cancer that killed his wife, the depression that destroyed his love, the moral rot that took his soul.” Danny is from Providence, Rhode Island, and desperately tried to leave his criminal life behind him. But using a ton of ill-gotten gains, he invests heavily in Las Vegas properties. Congress is conducting an investigation into gambling that could destroy his casino business and even land him in jail. An FBI agent plans to take Danny down for major sins he’d like to repent for. Meanwhile, can he make peace with his enemies? Nope, doesn’t look like it. Even if the parties involved want to put the past behind them, the trouble is that they don’t trust each other. Is Vern Winegard setting Dan up? Is Dan setting Vern up? “Trust? Trust is children waiting for Santa Claus.” So what could have been a “Kumbaya,” nobody-wants-to-read-this story turns into a grisly bloodletting filled with language that would set Sister Mary Margaret’s wimple on fire—figuratively speaking, as she’s not in the book. But the Catholic reference is appropriate: Two of the many colorful characters of ill repute are known as the Altar Boys, serving “Last Communion” to their victims. On the law-abiding side and out of the line of fire is an ex-nun-turned-prosecutor nicknamed Attila the Nun, who’s determined to bring justice for a gory matricide. (Rhode Island really had such a person, by the way.) Finally, the prose is just fun: A friend warns Dan about Allie Licata: “In a world of sick fucks, even the sick fucks think Licata’s a sick fuck.” A couple of things to note: This not only ends the trilogy, but it also closes out the author’s career, as he has said he’ll write no more novels.
If you love good crime writing but aren’t familiar with Winslow’s work, read this trilogy in order.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780063079472
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PROFILES
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.
The ne’er-do-well son of a successful Irish American family gets dragged into criminal complications that suggest the rest of the Devlins aren’t exactly the upstanding citizens they appear.
The first 35 years in the life of Thomas “TJ” Devlin have been one disappointment after another to his parents, lawyers who founded a prosperous insurance and reinsurance firm, and his more successful siblings, John and Gabby. A longtime alcoholic who’s been unemployable ever since he did time for an incident involving his ex-girlfriend Carrie’s then 2-year-old daughter, TJ is nominally an investigator for Devlin & Devlin, but everyone knows the post is a sinecure. Things change dramatically when golden-boy John tells TJ that he just killed Neil Lemaire, an accountant for D&D client Runstan Electronics. Their speedy return to the murder scene reveals no corpse, so the brothers breathe easier—until Lemaire turns up shot to death in his car. John’s way of avoiding anything that might jeopardize his status as heir apparent to D&D is to throw TJ under the bus, blaming him for everything John himself has done and adding that you can’t trust anything his brother has said since he’s fallen off the wagon. TJ, who’s maintained his sobriety a day at a time for nearly two years, feels outraged, but neither the police investigating the murder nor his nearest and dearest care about his feelings. Forget the forgettable mystery, whose solution will leave you shrugging instead of gasping, and focus on the circular firing squad of the Devlins, and you’ll have a much better time than TJ.
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780525539704
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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