A remarkable cast sparks this incisive, riveting tale of intolerance.
An immigration lawyer and her latest client both face injustice and a host of menaces in Arama’s debut thriller.
Seattle-based attorney Laura Holban reluctantly takes on a new case despite her hefty workload. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have just arrested undocumented Guatemalan immigrant Emilio Ramirez, who has lived in Washington state with a happy family and a steady job for more than two decades. But he’s now up against Seattle’s chief ICE prosecutor, Mason Waltman, who seems determined to eject him from the country. Laura’s burden is to prove that her client shouldn’t be deported, a task that is complicated by a false assault claim leveled at Emilio. Someone appears to really want Emilio back in Guatemala; his family’s home is broken into, and Laura is physically intimidated in an effort to get her to drop the case. Suddenly, questions arise about the validity of Laura’s own green card, which she received when she immigrated to the United States from Romania 18 years earlier. Laura worries that Emilio will be killed if he returns to his native country, a sad fate that’s befallen other clients of hers—but the greatest danger for her, Emilio, and his family may be much closer to home. Arama’s taut narrative brims with tension and indelible characters. The author is sensitive to discrimination (“When a native speaker makes a mistake, it’s because they’re tired or distracted. When an immigrant makes the same mistake, it’s because they’re dumb”) and microaggressions: Several people make note of Laura’s accent, as if she’s a tourist in the country she’s made her home. The story derives suspense from unpredictable threats courtesy of ICE, crooked lawyers, and the mysterious figure targeting Emilio. Most of Laura’s fight takes place outside the courtroom, where only a few scenes are set. Violence crops up in the final act, though it’s nominal, and the ending packs a mean dramatic punch.
A remarkable cast sparks this incisive, riveting tale of intolerance.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781947845381
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ooligan Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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