professor of psychology at VMU and a sometime FBI consultant to boot. Everybody involved has a different agenda they’re desperately trying to keep secret from everybody else, but the main thing that changes when the secrets come out is another burst of violence that suggests that that summer 18 years ago may not be the only time that ends up getting buried. More smoke than fire.
reasons. One is that, despite her admission of guilt, the detective thinks Ann Parsons is innocent. The second is that Ann is, like Erin, transgender. Her decision to represent Ann will end up putting Erin, her law partner, and her boyfriend in grave danger. And, as the action unfolds, she will also have to deal with her mother’s breast cancer and the knowledge that her boyfriend’s family won’t accept her. The setup is quite similar to that of Gigl’s debut, By Way of Sorrow (2021), as is the mix of legal thriller with interpersonal drama. Erin is an engaging protagonist surrounded by wellrounded secondary characters. But the emotional stakes here are less compelling, and the legal case is unsatisfying. In By Way of Sorrow, Erin was dealing with the fact that her brother and her father rejected her after she came out as trans, and she was negotiating a romance with a man who wasn’t sure he could deal with her past. Watching Erin react to her mother’s illness slows the plot of this second book without revealing anything new about the protagonist and, here, that same boyfriend is almost too good to be true. The bad guys are also implausible. The idea of powerful people exploiting children is all too believable, but there’s something ridiculous about evil geniuses whose only response to a perceived threat is to just murder everybody. The emotional realism and the cartoon violence don’t fit together. The biggest issue, though, is the amount of information—about Ann Parsons and another key character—that Gigl keeps under wraps as the narrative unfolds. The reader never sees Erin asking—or even formulating—obvious and important questions about her client. To the extent that there are big reveals, they feel artificial and insufficient. Gigl uses her debut novel as a template, with diminishing returns.
SURVIVOR’S GUILT
Gigl, Robyn Kensington (352 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 25, 2022 978-1-4967-2828-9
A defense attorney takes on sex traffickers and child pornographers. When a detective asks Erin McCabe to meet with a young woman accused of murder, he explains that he has two
CALL US WHAT WE CARRY Poems
Gorman, Amanda Viking (80 pp.) $19.99 | Dec. 7, 2021 978-0-593-46506-6 Poems for teenagers and adults that cast a scrutinizing eye on United States history and current events while being hopeful about the future. Gorman’s opening poem, “Ship’s Manifest,” lays out her intentions: “This book is a message in a bottle. / This book is a letter. / This book does not let up. / This book is awake. / This book is a wake. / For what is a record but a reckoning?” Gorman delivers subtle turns of phrase alongside playful yet purposeful punning. The book tackles grief without succumbing to melancholy. It earnestly charts the challenges its collective “we” must navigate, including mask mandates and Covid-19 restrictions; social isolation; the environmental negligence of past generations; and the civil unrest following the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. A “dark girl” dreams and skillfully steers the collective “we” point of view in these poems, which marks a sea change in the United States and, subsequently, in contemporary American poetry. Mostly, the collective “we” point of view 20
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1 january 2022
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fiction
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