A playful, postmodern potboiler set in a memorably off-beat Oregon town.
In Goss’ literary novel, a criminal on the run stumbles into a murder investigation.
Omar Adil Papadopoulos has chosen a new name: Magnus Krum. “He wanted to feel it heavy in his bones, the new name. Instead, his heart fluttered at the newness of it.” The half Cuban, half Lebanese Greek 27-year-old former track star has just fled his hometown of Detroit with a small bag of belongings and $50,000 in cash. He’s blown a promising career in cybersecurity by hosting a transfer pricing scheme for his Uncle Vinnie, an associate of the Chaldean mob, and now Magnus is on the run from both the Detroit Police and ICE. He ends up in Manzanita, Oregon, a picturesque beach town where Magnus promptly takes his first-ever dip in the ocean and almost drowns. He’s rescued by Hero Wheelwright, a young parkour enthusiast and the daughter of one of D.C.’s top spooks who happens to look almost exactly like Magnus. Hero has just learned that her father isn’t her biological father—her spy mother, currently dying of cancer, doesn’t know the name of the long-deceased birth one—though she has her own dark history involving a dead would-be lover and shadowy would-be assassin. With Hero’s assistance, Magnus soon finds himself a tenant and employee of Shortley Holder and his son Lee, misanthropic owners of a local vacation rentals business. When Magnus discovers Lee has been abusing one of the underage maids in the Holders’ employ, he is forced to act in her defense—but when Shortley and Lee are murdered, Magnus must ensure that he and Hero do not become the targets of the investigation. As unlawful acts and unsavory characters pile up around them, Magnus and Hero must decide whether they can truly break from their respective pasts or if the violence will ultimately catch them.
Goss writes in a wry, slightly verbose postmodern style that rewards careful attention: “Attired in hospital gown and slippers and unable to sleep, the revenant Magnus traveled the hallway in an elliptical orbit with the bathroom and nursing station as foci. He shuffled down the hall; he shuffled back. He shuffled down the hall; he shuffled back.” There are Thomas Pynchon–esque names (Stella Angel, Jock Esposito) and satirical flourishes (Magnus briefly takes a job with the car-share service WeDrive!). It’s apparent that Goss is having a good time—he refers to his protagonist as “Omar-now-Magnus” for the entirety of the first chapter—and most of the time, the reader is having one as well. With its knotty plot revolving around immigrants and their native-born exploiters, the book feels unexpectedly of the moment, even if the characters are a bit too stylized—and the pacing a bit too leisurely—to sustain much political urgency. Even so, there is a stickiness to the protagonists and their mysteries that keeps the reader engaged, happy to follow Goss down whatever serpentine digressions he wishes to lead them.
A playful, postmodern potboiler set in a memorably off-beat Oregon town.Pub Date: May 24, 2025
ISBN: 9798986921563
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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