A sharp, empathetic, and compulsively readable thriller.
Zimmerman’s legal thriller follows a small-town attorney whose beliefs are upended when she’s appointed to defend a mother accused of murdering her own child.
Since she took over her father’s practice 20 years ago, Victoria Stephens has known where she stands. A self-described “big-shot attorney in a small town,” she’s known throughout St. Clair County, Michigan, for bringing home the win—and for bringing in huge retainers to spend on red wine and designer shoes. When she’s brought on by the circuit judge for the year’s biggest murder case, though, her other clients take a backseat. It’s the summer of 2016, and the county seat of Port Huron is buzzing with speculation about Calliope “Callie” Thomas, the 17-year-old daughter of a local minister accused of drowning her newborn baby in the St. Clair River, which divides Michigan from Ontario. Callie claims to have no memory of the drowning, of giving birth, or even of being pregnant, but DNA evidence links her to the infant body found in the river, and Victoria knows the defense she’s building is shaky. To make matters worse, the tough-guy county prosecutor, Barrett Michaels—who has a long history with Victoria—is recommending a first-degree murder charge with mandatory life imprisonment. He’s running for a judge’s seat and is determined to project a tough-on-crime image. It looks like the odds are stacked against the young mother, who continues to insist she doesn’t remember a thing. Jean Burley, an older lawyer from Detroit, has been following Callie’s case and insists that Victoria speak to Eleanor Allen, a psychiatrist researching a controversial new syndrome. “Neonaticide syndrome,” Allen explains, is a “specific kind of dissociation” that causes mothers to forget their pregnancy, labor, and panicked desperation to dispose of their baby. The lead seems promising, but a defense based on the syndrome might not be allowed in the courtroom. When Callie’s soon-to-be stepmother finally posts her bail, Callie’s pastor father (whose church sports signs like “THEY’RE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, NOT THE TEN SUGGESTIONS”) won’t let his daughter come home. Victoria, in her own state of panic, offers to house Callie instead. As the two women attempt to build a case, their lives become increasingly, and perhaps dangerously, enmeshed.
Zimmerman’s novel hits a raw political nerve—though the 2016 U.S. presidential election isn’t mentioned, the story carefully skewers puritanical politics around teen pregnancy and abortion, and the story is dedicated to “all the women charged with infanticide whose behavior has been prejudged and misunderstood.” Geography comes into play; “Canada, just over there…is light-years ahead of us on this issue,” readers are informed (slightly didactically), and the small-town Michigan setting is precisely realized. Evocative descriptive language paints a strong setting: As Victoria looks out onto Lake Huron, she observes that, “A few small fishing boats motored in the opposite direction, unzipping the black water, their wakes spreading behind their sterns like paper fans.” The dependably twisty plot, nicely grounded in the author’s real-life legal experience, unfortunately feels rushed toward the conclusion—there’s just too much to resolve, too quickly. Still, the novel strikes a strong balance between entertainment and political manifesto regarding an underexplored issue. A sharp, empathetic, and compulsively readable thriller.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781684633180
Page Count: 312
Publisher: SparkPress
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.
More than a decade after a Georgia man is convicted of a monstrous double murder, an uncomfortably similar crime frees him and resets the search for the guilty party.
In Clifton County, home to the Rich Cliftons and the other Cliftons, the disappearance of teens Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker during the Halloween festivities hits everyone in North Falls hard. Working with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton hears the clock ticking down as she races frantically to get leads on the two friends, who’d been secretly plotting to take off for Atlanta after some undisclosed big score. As a longtime friend of Madison’s mother, Hannah, Emmy hopes against hope to find the missing teens before they’re both dead. By the time Emmy’s hopes are dashed, two unpleasantly likely suspects with strong attachments to underage sex partners have emerged, and one of them ends up in prison. In a bold move, Slaughter jumps over the next 12 years to the case of Paisley Walker, a 14-year-old whose disappearance catches the eye of retiring FBI criminal psychologist Jude Archer, who promptly crosses the country to come to Clifton County and take charge—um, that is, consult—on this heartrending new investigation. Emmy, suddenly and shockingly deprived of counsel from the parents who’ve supported her all her life, doesn’t get along any better with Jude than with the larger circle of Cliftons and the Clifton-Cliftons. But together they identify one new suspect, then another, before a shootout that arrives so early you just know there are still more surprises to come.
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063336773
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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
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