A novel that puts a fresh twist on getting what you deserve.
A summer among the Massachusetts elite introduces a young law student to a life and temptations he hadn’t imagined.
It begins with an offer that Conor O’ Toole can’t refuse—free lodging in a cabin on Cutters Neck, a gated community of posh summer homes, in exchange for providing tennis lessons to the lawyer who has invited him. He can also solicit other residents to pay for lessons. A comedy of manners seems to unfold, as the rich rise above the pandemic, insulated by their wealth, while the servants remain masked and keep a proper distance. The novelist expertly inserts himself inside Conor’s psyche, and it seems like a pretty comfortable place, for protagonist and reader alike. A good-looking man with a tennis pro’s physique, Conor tries to stay focused on studying for the bar exam and scheduling enough lessons to provide medicine for his diabetic mother. He’s a dutiful son, and she lives in the apartment they share in Yonkers. Soon enough, the richest divorcee on “the neck” becomes his most lucrative customer, a sexually voracious and domineering woman who employs tennis lessons as blatant seduction and starts paying him twice his going rate to service her. The sex is explosive beyond anything he had experienced, although debasing (and thus all the steamier). He rationalizes that he is doing this to provide for his mother, but he gets a rush from the sex. (And the money.) Then a younger woman arrives, complicating the arrangement. They begin to see each other a lot. He finds himself juggling the sexual fireworks with the one and the slower-burning love he is kindling with the other. He can’t quit either, and he vows to keep his relationship with each a secret. But something has to give. Something does. Conor’s seeming innocence turns insidious, unnerving. And the summer idyll, the comedy of manners, turns gruesome, as lies and rationalization lead to way worse.
A novel that puts a fresh twist on getting what you deserve.Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9780063353596
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.
What hasn’t legendary legal eagle Grisham tried yet? How about a thriller about serial kidnapping and international terrorism.
When Paul and Chelsea Tanner disappear during a day trip on their Paris honeymoon, their abductors demand a ransom of $2 million from Chelsea’s wealthy parents, and a few days later the same sum from Paul’s much less well-heeled parents. After orthopedist Lowell Clayburn, Chelsea’s father, ponies up the ransom without breathing a word to the authorities, his daughter is promptly released. But even though Paul’s parents sell their home, liquidate their assets, and borrow money from the Clayburns to meet the kidnappers’ demands, the villains hold on to Paul anyway. Asked whether he’s ever seen such an outcome in a double kidnapping, FBI deputy director Andrew Strong tells Lowell: “No, this is a new one.” But it’s not, as Strong knows all too well; it’s the third such active case, all involving honeymooning couples whose bridegrooms had served in the armed forces. After masterfully drawing readers in with his bare-knuckle account of the Tanners’ abduction and the attempt by their families and the CIA to tell the lies required to keep caring friends and the rapacious press at bay, Grisham effortlessly switches gears to follow CIA agent Rae Claire Russo and Stuart Nash, a former Department of Justice prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay who agrees to marry her so they can serve as bait for the kidnappers, whose motives include justice and revenge as well as cold hard cash. So much for the imprisoned Paul’s wistful reflection that “hopefully, it was only about money.”
The story unfolds so irresistibly that newcomers may think Grisham’s been writing thrillers like this his whole life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2026
ISBN: 9780385550543
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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