A highly illuminating (if dense) story hinging on a relatively obscure detail of American government.
Keillor’s political thriller posits a potential change to the U.S. Constitution.
The year is 2029. Brian Cornwall is a political reporter at the Washington Post who’s been on the National Politics Desk for the past 24 years. Things are changing at the newspaper; Brian will now cover something called Constitutional Journalism. He’ll be involved with the “Gouverneur Morris Project,” an organization that practically no one else at the paper has ever heard of. The bipartisan Morris Project studies Article V of the U.S. Constitution, which “spells out two procedures for amending the Constitution.” In the first, Congress passes an amendment that’s then ratified by three-quarters of U.S. states; the second way requires two-thirds of states to call for a convention for “proposing amendments” (the latter method has never occurred in American history). Although a report warns that a constitutional change should not be “forged in a time of divisive controversy,” as years progress in the story, political divisions in America are on the rise—perhaps the Constitution will be challenged much more quickly than the experts had imagined. A narrative propelled by a portion of an 18th-century political document is certainly difficult to make gripping—not only must readers grasp what Article V means, but they must also see how it might function in this near-future setting; the story succeeds in allowing the audience to do both. It also incorporates intriguing bits of American history, such as a government commission to implement the metric system in the 1970s. Still, it takes time for the novel to gather steam; characters make comments like “We’re looking at an impending crisis” only after many dry considerations of issues such as whether the United States is technically a democracy or a republic. Despite the slow start, the narrative ultimately brings the finer points of the Constitution to life in an entertaining way.
A highly illuminating (if dense) story hinging on a relatively obscure detail of American government.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9798891381582
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.
When one woman takes on another’s identity to uncover a crime, they both become suspects in a murder.
Aubrey Price and Camille Bayliss come from different worlds, only crossing paths because of the discovery that Camille’s husband, powerful lawyer Ben Bayliss, is hiding something terrible that affects them both. As the novel opens, Aubrey is driving Camille’s Range Rover, then teetering into a bar on Camille’s high heels, with Camille’s dress and credit cards and a wig that mimics Camille’s hair, pretending to be her because Ben tracks his wife’s every move and expenditure, and Camille wants to create a smokescreen while she sneaks into his office in search of evidence of that unnamed secret. But the scheme goes awry, and the women become each other’s alibis after Camille finds Ben murdered in their home. The first part of the book builds suspense and misdirection well, with Aubrey and Ben’s straight-arrow partner, Hank Landry, serving as first-person observers in some chapters while others track Camille. She’s a wealthy and privileged woman but not a happy one, stuck under the thumbs of her husband and her tyrannical father, Randall Everett, who pretty much runs their small Louisiana town. Aubrey was orphaned as a teen when her parents died in a car crash and has proudly fended for herself ever since, coming to depend on her four roommates, who have become friends. But as the cast of characters grows, it seems as if almost everyone in town has a motive for killing Ben, and the piling up of suspects and movements among different timelines can sometimes be confusing. And it all comes to a frustrating end when, after a whole school of red herrings, the solution to Ben’s murder arrives out of far left field.
This mystery’s promising premise bogs down in an overloaded cast.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780593834459
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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