Survivor's guilt

In Gigl's stunning sequel to 2021's By Way of Sorrow, the shooting death of businessman Charles Parsons at first looks like suicide, until a voice recording surfaces in which Parson identifies the shooter as his adopted daughter, Ann, who subsequently confesses to the crime. But transgender New Jersey lawyer Erin McCabe becomes convinced she should help Ann, who's also trans, withdraw the plea and go to trial after Erin becomes aware of Parsons's monstrous behavior and of the pressure put on Ann to confess by Parsons's colleagues, who made threats to someone Ann cares about. These threats extend to Erin and her loved ones once she becomes involved in the case. Erin's fear that her new romantic partner, Mark, will leave her over his family's rejection of her identity adds personal stress. Meanwhile, the actual killer skillfully continues her vigilante justice campaign against Parsons's organization's systematic child abuse and greed. Gigl delightfully flips the usual terms of the genre with a murder victim readers are quickly drawn to hate and a murderer whom they will be rooting for. Her takes on big questions of justice, revenge, and the nature of victimhood will resonate with many. Agent: Carrie Pestrito, Laura Dail Literary. (Feb.)

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 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 well-rounded 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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.