An alluring but uneven mystery in the Murakami mold.
A man searches for a missing friend in this debut novel.
Mister Yam—yes, he’s aware it’s a strange name—is a 25-year-old man from Malaysia with a corporate job in San Francisco. He isn’t as gung-ho about the business world as his friend Lorenzo de Medici, who is desperate to land a job—any job. One day, Mister Yam gets a phone call from a mysterious woman who makes fun of his name—“Are you the one they call the purple starch?”—before revealing that she knows far more than she should about his sandwich-making habits. Later, on a train, a bald stranger gives Mister Yam a wooden box that he claims he’s never been able to open. “Ciao,” says the man as he disembarks at the next stop. “And whatever you do, don’t get lost.” Not long after, Mister Yam learns that Lorenzo has vanished—in fact, he’s been missing for weeks. So begins a journey to connect these puzzling threads, one that leads Mister Yam through a string of encounters with unusual people in dive bars, ranches, and hotels. Can he follow the enigmatic trail of clues in order to discover what happened to his friend? Or is he simply being led on a wild goose chase into the madness of the American dream? Tan’s cerebral novel is reminiscent of Haruki Murakami both in its structure and its dreamlike prose, which is always surprising though sometimes difficult to follow in Mister Yam’s narration: “Perceptiveness was not an adjective I’d ever use to describe myself, but it was clear that something was off. Like cucumber on a steak, the mismatch was obvious. But if strangeness was the cucumber, then the silence was its sauce, which descended upon me as I sat in the deserted space.” The tale’s tone is charmingly offbeat, keeping readers invested despite how slowly the author dispenses information about the narrator and his quest. Even so, the audience will eventually become frustrated with the lack of direction. The story dawdles along to a twist ending that is neither satisfying nor even terribly original, and readers will be left feeling as though they are the ones who have been led on a wild goose chase.
An alluring but uneven mystery in the Murakami mold.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2021
ISBN: 979-8450939674
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 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
SEEN & HEARD
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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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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