(The following review will run on CriminalElement.com the week of publication.)

From the very first page, Suburban Dicks flies out of the gate at top speed:

Satkunanathan Sasmal would have been the first to admit he’d had worse nights working the midnight shift at his uncle’s Valero station.
There was the old lady who fell asleep while driving and plowed into the first island. Satkunanathan barely hit the kill switch on pump three before diving out of the car’s path. The woman rolled down her window and asked him to fill her tank. Regular. Cash.
Then there was the time he had been robbed at gunpoint. And the other time he had been robbed at knifepoint. And the other time he had been robbed at spatula-point. In his defense, it had been one of those long-handled metal barbeque spatulas.
And then there was last night, when Satkunanathan Sasmal was murdered.


Poor Satkunanathan may not get a lot of screen-time, but his death proves to be an explosive catalyst that exposes another racially-motivated crime: this one covered up for over fifty years.

Andrea Stern didn’t intend to get involved in the investigation. Her youngest daughter simply needed to pee, and she pulled into the gas station-turned-crime scene to tend to the issue. But once the former profiler — now a heavily pregnant housewife saddled with four other children and a distant husband — sees the murder victim, her brain instinctively kicks into overdrive, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

At the same time, disgraced reporter Kenny Lee catches wind of the story, the first murder in the area in decades, and begins to dig deeper, convinced the police are hiding something. Something more is going on than a simple robbery of drug-motivated hit, as the West Windsor Police Department initially claims.

In next to no time, Andrea and Kenny’s separate lines of inquiry converge and the pair find themselves uncovering a massive criminal conspiracy dating back to the 60’s, laying bare simmering racial tensions in the community and discovering proof that the present murder of Satkunanathan Sasmal was committed to hide the secret slaying of another young man.


“The police aren’t incompetent, Kenny. They’re lying.”
“All of them?” he asked, thinking of Benjamin.
“No, probably not. But someone at the highest level is influencing the information they’re relaying to you.”
“When I was putting my board together, I asked why the police lie,” he said. “And two of the reasons apply here, I think. To cover up a mistake they made, or to cover up a mistake someone more powerful made.”
She nodded and stared across Grover’s Mill Pond. The late afternoon sun was lowering to the west. It cast a sparkling sheen across the water. She watched a cormorant leave its perch and fly off.
“And because it’s what’s expected of them,” she replied. “Because it’s what they’ve been doing for a very long time.”


Both Andrea and Kenny are former wunderkinds — she created a profile that brought down a serial killer before she was even accepted to Quantico, while he won a Pulitzer at twenty-two for exposing a corrupt governor — who have suffered falls from grace. In Kenny’s case, his thirst for fame led to him falsifying sources and destroying his own reputation. For Andrea, an unexpected pregnancy put paid to her FBI career before it had even really started. This unexpected case in their own backyard may prove to be a redemption for them both.

Suburban Dicks, with its plot revolving around hate crimes, institutionalized racism, police corruption, and a far-reaching conspiracy, is a timely tale. With local law enforcement compromised, it’s up to a private citizen (Andrea) and a member of the media (Kenny) to secure true justice for the victims. And it’s telling that the heroes of the tale are a Jewish women and a Chinese-American man, while the victims are Indian and African-American.


“Everyone on this list is an open missing-persons case. I filled in what information I could gather on them but a lot of it is really incomplete, which explains why I’m here seeing you.”
She looked at the list again. “Every one of these a brother?” she asked.
“And if one of those names is attached to a body I’m trying to identify, then several old white people are going to pay for his murder,” Kenny said.
She stared at him for several seconds, then said, “You’re not doing it ‘cause you’re a good person.”
“No, I absolutely am not,” he freely admitted. “But good will come of it. I promise you that.”
She took the paperwork and stamped it, jotting notes on a yellow sticky, which she slapped on the top sheet. Kenny knew that meant she was expediting the request. It could be a matter of days instead of months.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Solve it and I’ll say you’re welcome,” she said.

Dicks is Nicieza’s first foray into novels, but he’s got quite an impressive resume as a comics writer (and as the co-creator of the fan favorite Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool). That background with quippy dialogue and larger-than-life characters serves him well here; this is a mystery with plenty of zing to it, one that’ll make audiences laugh out loud and gasp “Ooooh!” from page to page. If Anne Rule and the Coen Brothers had collaborated on a novel, it might be something like this.

The plot unfolds at a fast-paced clip and with a great amount of confidence. Kenny is openly unrepentant about his greedy ambitions, while Andrea is a genius with plenty of regrets and a spine of steel; they’re both what I like to call Hot Mess Heroes, whose personal lives may be in shambles but who still have what it takes when things start to hit the walls. Watching the pair of them bounce off each other and their myriad allies and enemies is huge fun, especially once the villains begin sweating.

All in all, Suburban Dicks may be one of the most enjoyable crime stories I’ve read in recent years. Nicieza achieves a difficult balance between sarcastic amusment and realistic tragedy, never letting the story become too heavy or too light, dipping momentarily into each end as needed. There are deplorable characters, lovable characters, and pathetic/pitiful/annoying losers in between. We never truly doubt that justice will be fully served by the end, but the path we take to getting there twists and turns in interesting directions.

In this age of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries reboot, with podcasters like the gals of My Favorite Murder and bloggers like Michelle McNamara rallying to solve cold cases, Suburban Dicks fits right in and is sure to delight a similar audience.

Andie Stern is just your typical suburban housewife/mom. She has four (nearly five) children and she spends her day doing mom things. Until one day she stumbles over a murder case when she stops for gas. Andie really isn’t a typical New Jersey mom. She’s also a former FBI profiler and when she realizes that the local cops are in well over their heads, her instincts kick in. Now Andie is back in the game – this time with her kids in tow and a disgraced, local, journalist as her trusty backup.

The Suburban Dicks is author Fabian Nicieza’s debut novel and I hope it’s not his last! This is simply a great book that is clever, entertaining and funny, while it also addresses the much more serious subject of racism and social issues. The multi-layer mystery is well-conceived, the dialogue is rich, and the story is fast-paced. So far, this is this best book I’ve read this year. It is a winner in every sense of the word.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Fabian Nicieza! Dig it. He was all Stan the Man for Marvel during the nineties and early aughts with a resume stronger than Colossus: X-Men; X-Force; New Warriors; Thunderbolts! And oh yeah, co-created some wiseass Ryan Reynolds played in a movie or three.

Now the big Fabe has gone and wrote up a genuine crime novel and it sizzles hotter than the pork-fried rice at Benihana’s.

Suburban Dicks is set in the sarcastic wilds of West Windsor, New Jersey. For those who might only be hip on Manco & Manco Pizza in Ocean City or the Devils’ home of Newark, the scene of crime in this fun novel lies dead on north east from Trenton and less than hour from the much more serious environs of Philadelphia cheesesteaks. An Indian gas attendant is murdered and while the WWPD stumble around, former profiler and now severely-pregnant mom Andrea Stern – and four times over at that – sets her hormone-driven anxiety to solving the crime. Along for the ride is former glory-hound reporter Ken Lee who is looking for his next big break in order to sell the rights to Netflix. What they uncover is another murder, an older one. After all, nothing is ever easy in Jersey, especially where everything is legal. Unless you’re caught.

Nicieza combines dry humor with pulp fiction like he was writing for Reese’s. And brother, is it yummy.

Yet goofy accounting and situational humor aside, Nicieza has created a fantastically-entertaining crime novel loaded with personal angst for all main characters. More importantly? He analyzes the abject, deep-rooted seriousness of racism and imparts his commentary on the subject showing that everyone is equal. That skin color provides no barrier in the ways of family, love, community, dreams. And oh yes, murder. Even in Jersey.

Suburban Dicks is more than a wry reference to detective work in the ‘burbs. This is epitomizing that Jersey swagger in a fun, filthy crime novel. And there needs to be more.


Thanks to Netgalley and GP Putnam’s Sons for the quick trip up I-295.

This was a fun detective story that kept me engaged, however, cutting out 50 pages would have really made it sing. Both of the main characters were interesting and I wanted to know more about their pasts than just the glimmers we get-I wonder if the author was holding back so there would be more to tell if it turned into a series?

(The fact I keep having to change autocorrect from Suburban DUCKS is driving me a little bonkers. This is not a wildlife book.)

⏰ 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫: Andi Stern traded in her life as an up-and-coming FBI profiler for one of SAHM. Except she stumbles on a murder scene and realizes the cops are bungling the scene. Tenaciously, she pursues this case she can NOT let go. She eventually teams up with a former Pulitzer winning journalist, now local ignominious news reporter Ken Lee in order to bring the culprits to justice. Body parts are found. Racism is rampant, and the suburb of New Window, NJ is spun into a tizzy.

💡𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬💡: I love books that are MORE than mysteries… more in a sense of a lesson learned or a historical angle, social issues, etc and this one fits. The “tongue-in-cheek” title is apropos. Having humor (done well) interlaced with a pretty dang capable mystery is a tough accomplishment and here Nicieza deftly weaves the two. Andrea is a mother bear - feisty and feral (though in all honesty she COULD eat one of her cubs, I think, if they annoy her too much). Ken is a bit of a prat and doesn’t care for much except himself and his tarnished reputation.

I enjoyed the ride mostly due to Andrea - her perseverance and pride and refusal to be anything other than what she wanted was admirable. The honesty in her character is downright lovable - that she is in an unhappy marriage because her husband doesn’t support her goals and her desire to be a mom but maintain her intelligence outlet is a battle to which many women will relate. Andrea realizes how she misses her career and mostly that she shouldn’t HAVE to choose. Lots of issues to discuss about the cliche of “having it all” and what that means.

On the flip side I also don’t understand what Andrea is thinking, how she becomes a baby-making machine and then 10 years later wants to flip her life upside down. From that angle, I feel for her husband. Perhaps he never really knew her - these loose ends demand a second novel.

The race/ethnicity social issues in the book were superbly written - realistic to my personal experiences, and I love the moment when Andrea breaks the barrier. It was a pivotal moment and lesson - sometimes simply talking to someone unlike you reveals truths neglected, haven’t experienced, or were completely unaware of. A lesson for everyone I think.

𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆𝗠𝗮𝗴𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

🅶🅴🅽🆁🅴: Mystery

😍𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: It’s a classically well-written mystery so all the peeps in that dept need to holla.

🙅‍♀️ 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨: I suppose if you’re not into the social issues aspect.

ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ, ɴᴇᴛɢᴀʟʟᴇʏ ᴀɴᴅ ɢ.ᴘ. ᴘᴜᴛɴᴀᴍ’ꜱ ꜱᴏɴꜱ ʙᴏᴏᴋꜱ ꜰᴏʀ ᴍʏ ᴀᴅᴠᴀɴᴄᴇᴅ ᴄᴏᴘʏ ɪɴ ᴇxᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴍʏ ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ-ʜᴏɴᴇꜱᴛ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴏʀ ᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴏᴜᴛ ᴀᴛ ᴍʏ ʟᴀᴡɴ ᴅɪꜰꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴛʟʏ.

Oh, my, I enjoyed this book so much! What happens when you pair a disgraced journalist with a woman who once had a chance as a brilliant criminal profiler but now has four children and one on the way?
Utter hilarity and hijinks!

I knew this was going to be hysterical when at the start, very pregnant Andie Stern pulls up to the murder scene of a young Indian man at a gas station in her minivan with four screaming children in tow. She climbs out to take her youngest to the bathroom, and the female cop on the scene, Michelle Wu, describes Andie exiting the minivan as:

“if the minivan was oozing an egg yolk.”

Wu ,who is childless, also talks about the minivan and its screaming occupants,

“the van door seemed like a portal into hell” and “the minivan was a rolling advertisement for Ortho.”

I was already laughing hysterically and knew this ride was going to be fun! And it was. It was a crazy, up and down, roller-coaster ride of crazy proportions, but there were serious sides to the story as well. One being the over-the-top, offensive racist stereotyping. It was so bad that I soon realized that the author purposely did this to enlighten the reader on how horrible and outrageous systemic racism is and the damage it causes.

Secondly, Andie’s sadness was palpable, and her knowledge that the possibility of doing what she loved was slim. Her husband’s indifference was disheartening and I disliked him immensely!

But in the end, the combination of Andie and Kenny and their interactions were hilarious. Throw the kids in the mix, and it was a recipe for disaster! As they investigated the murder in the remarkably diverse community they lived in, they would discover something deeper and darker that existed.

This book was well worth my time, for the laughter, the enlightenment, and the very last sentence, which made me laugh so loud my husband thought I was losing my mind. Well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, for the opportunity to read it in exchange for an honest review. I gave it four stars.

This was laugh out loud funny with a quirky main character whose life is definitely out of control. But, somehow, she makes it work. Ten years after giving up the beginnings of a promising career as an FBI profiler to become a baby making machine, a murder mystery falls in Andie’s lap. Balancing four kids, pregnancy, a disapproving husband and a desire to be happy again, she sets out to help the apparently incompetent local police. Along the way she forms a slightly contentious relationship with a local reporter as they work to solve an intriguing mystery. A fast read with plenty of slapstick humor.
My copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review it.

4.5/5
I requested this book because of the title and was more than grateful that I was granted a review copy. Because I really liked this book and can see it being a best-seller when it hits the bookstores.
First let me say this, while the story involves a pregnant mom of 4+1 in the oven, and the title could suggest domestic drama, this book is not about that. It is still a great portrait of suburban life, with all its tension and mundane aspects.
If you are a fan of Deadpool, either the comic or the movie (though I suspect more people would have only seen the movie), you would probably love this book. The humor is along the same line and quality, which is not surprising considering who the author is. To be honest, although I laughed at a lot of the humorous remarks in this story, I did find some of the jokes a bit hard to swallow. And I think that has to do with myself being part of the Asian community and those remarks were a bit too close to home. But there aren't many of those and I've never been a top fan for super sarcastic humor so it wasn't surprising. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think many readers will really enjoy this book and appreciate the sarcasm within.
I find the pacing of the book to be just right for me. It is not a story where we have one thing happen right after another and race our way to the conclusion, but I didn't find the story to be slow or dragging at any point either. Once I've got past the first couple of chapters, which really didn't do anything for me because I didn't like Andie in those early moments without knowing more about her, the book became a breeze. I kept on wanting to read the next chapter. Wanting to know how the story develops and how the characters develop.
Speaking of characters, I didn't find myself particularly fond of either of the two main characters. Andie is a smart, very smart, woman. She loves her kids and is compassionate and likable, but to me, she's like a nice neighbor I'd like to be acquainted with but don't necessarily want to be close friends with. Kenny, on the other hand, is a known asshole and disliked by almost everyone in the book, including himself. But he's also good at his job and had his heart in the right place... most of the time...
The thing about the characters in this book is not how likable they were but that they all felt like *real* human beings. All the characters in the book, from Andie and Kenny to Andie's friends who are only on-page for a small part, felt like they are real people who were lifted from a typical rich American suburb. The author is very good at conveying exactly who those people are in just a few paragraphs. Yes, he plays the stereotypes with some of those characters, but he's also able to include enough nuances to those characters to make them distinct enough that they won't be simple archetypes. I read the book and feel like I knew who those people are and what they are like. And that is what I really appreciate about this book.
This book also talks about some pretty heavy topics. Race and racial tensions are an important part of the book and that's just what you get when you have a town with a community with a large Chinese community and a large Indian community and built on former farmlands. Generational pressure from a broken patriarch is another. Without giving anything away, all I can say is that the author handled those topics with a great amount of humanity, and left me thinking long after I’ve finished the story. In the end, I am not sure I’ve got a sense of “justice was restored” when reaching the end, but I did get a sense of closure, which is usually how thigs like this usually end in real life. Was that a bit disappointing? I’m not sure. But it did make me appreciate this book a lot more.

I loved, loved, loved Suburban Dicks! The writing was clever, funny and so entertaining. I sure hope there’s another Annie Stern and Kenneth Lee mystery from Fabian Nicieza. Great cover!

Suburban Dicks marks the debut novel for long-time comic book writer, and co-creator of the Marvel Comics character Deadpool, Fabian Nicieza. If you're at all familiar with the latter creation, either via comics or movies, you'll know one thing about this mystery book already -- Suburban Dicks is a freaking blast!

After a gas station attendant is murdered, former would-be FBI profiler Andrea Stern teams up with local disgraced reporter Ken Lee to get to the bottom of things after it becomes clear the police are either incompetent or corrupt... or maybe both.

Suburban Dicks perfectly scratched that Veronica Mars-sized itch I seem to perpetually have thanks to its snappy, snarky humor and whip-smart lead. Andrea herself shares a lot in common with Mars, having been a teen sleuth herself, responsible for solving several high school cases involving missing phones and locating the keys to various parents' liquor cabinets, but her biggest claim to fame came in helping identify and capture a notorious serial killer before graduating college. Before she was able to join the FBI's Behavior Analysis Unit, though, she found herself pregnant and torn between work and starting a family.

Now, Andrea perpetually kicks herself for being a fat broodmare as the mother of four and pregnant with the fifth. Her marriage sucks and while she loves her kids, she hates her life. It's not until the murder of Satku Sasmal that she begins to find purpose. For reporter Lee, it's a chance to make amends for sabotaging his own career, with an eye on fame and fortune via an eventual Netflix documentary unravelling the decades-long conspiracy he and Andrea have uncovered.

Suburban Dicks is a consistently enjoyable page-turner, and I dug the hell out of the brash, ballsy humor on damn near every page here. Beyond that, it's also pretty damn smart, and Nicieza kept me on my toes with some intriguing, well-timed reveals and a rich, deeply layered mystery. Add in some pointed commentary on the prejudices and racism of white suburbia and corrupt police, and you've got yourself a terrific whodunnit. Highly recommended.

A disgraced journalist and a would-be FBI profiler team up to investigate a murder in a diverse NJ town in “Suburban Dicks”, a thoroughly entertaining and engrossing novel. The author does a great job in blending humor (with literally laugh-out-loud moments) with an intriguing murder mystery, and some subtle social commentary that underlies the story. This is one of those books that you’re sorry to see end, but this duo would make a great series! Fun plot, interesting characters, I absolutely loved it and hoping for more. I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very funny, satirical novel/mystery featuring Andie Stern, an (almost) FBI profiler turned suburban housewife and mother, and Kenny Lee, a famed young journalist who suffered a huge disgrace. The story takes place in suburban New Jersey and covers the topic of race, in particular, as part of a well crafted story. A murder of an Indian worker at a gas station unfolds into a decades-old coverup that also emphasizes the racial tensions in the area. A very pregnant Andie joins forces with Kenny to solve both crimes. The story manages to be both hilarious and thoughtful. A recommended book, and hopefully a sequel is coming too.

The plot for this book is creative and moves at a good pace. The author has inserted lots of sarcastic humor and where it hit the mark with me it was laugh out loud funny. Some of it went wide of me, and that left me with mixed feelings. There are great twists and turns throughout which keeps the book fresh and the characters are well developed with both good and not so good traits. It also feels very contemporary as it deals in part with racial injustice and divisiveness within the community as well as the police and government who are supposed to be working for all the citizens of the area.
.
There are lots of references to jokes and body parts/functions, some of which were a bit too graphic for my tastes. It was difficult to get through the first few pages of the book which focus on Andie, the lead protagonist of the story who is a frazzled, heavily pregnant mother of four. She doesn’t like parenting, and would prefer the children be more “free range”. There is a graphic recounting of when Andie arrives at the crime scene, in search of a bathroom for her youngest. I could have done with less details about the toddler’s solution. In the midst of this, Andie is also viewing the scene, making mental notes, and drawing conclusions as to what took place.

The murder is eventually tied to events of nearly sixty years ago and Andie, along with Kenny, a reporter who is working to solve the crime, write up the story, and redeem himself, exposes the ways in which two crimes, separated by sixty years, are connected. In both time periods, racism is at the heart of the crime, but now a New York Jew and an Asian-American reporter are working to uncover the murderer of a young middle eastern Indian man which in some ways indicates how society has changed.

At the book’s close, a press conference is held. As Andie steps up to the microphone, the author returns to his pattern of graphically detailing some bodily functions, in this case Andie’s water breaking. In effect, this “bookends” the telling of the mystery with two short stories designed to be funny, however for me they fell flat. I would have enjoyed the story more without the more graphic depictions both at the start and end of the book. My thanks to Penguin Group’s G P Putnam and Sons and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy for this review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the cocreator of Deadpool can spin such a captivating and cynical yarn, but I was surprised by the sheer joy of going along with a couple of fed-up, imperfect people as they pursued murderers partly so that justice could be served and partly for their own motives. Everything that Nicieza portrays is unvarnished and bruisingly realistic, and though his characters aren't necessarily likeable, the reader grows to like them anyway. There's lots of backstory that's just hinted at, so that personalities and what formed them come into focus slowly, but I think the real strength is the central sleuth, a 7-months-pregnant mother of four who traded her opportunity to work for the FBI to become a (cringe) housewife, and who loves her children even though she hates the life she has settled into. The racial tensions and tentative understandings that run through the book are believable and relevant, and I'm crossing my fingers that this becomes a series.

Very funny and reverent. I had a bit of a hard time reading this one due to the text being so small. But that is my phone's fault, not Netgalley.

Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza is a superb read with a well defined plot and characters. Well worth the read!

I am a fan of murder mysteries and this book did not disappoint. The story is fast-paced and dark, but the clever diaglogue keeps it from being too dark the plot is interesting, The characters are engaging, and the writing is excellent.

Mystery/Crime Novel. I absolutely LOVED this crime novel. I fell immediately in love with the two main characters; they were funny, loveable, and savvy. Kenny and Andie were able to reconnect and work together to solve a (possible) gang-related murder. Hopefully, they'll be able to rise above some of the small-town people and their "traditions" that have smothered decent folks. The push and pull between (and within) these characters will delight readers. This debut deserves a few more books to make a series.

“Time changed our prejudices, but it didn’t change the fact that we were prejudiced.”

Pretty profound and introspective quote from a character in a book called Suburban Dicks that is written by the co-creator of Deadpool. This is a book that will have you laughing out loud one minute and angry at the injustices of minorities the next.

Andrea Stern is a wife and mother of four young children, and about “47 months” pregnant with her 5th child, judging by the size of her belly. She happens upon a crime scene at a gas station, which is hardly contained by the two officers in attendance. A young Indian man who worked at the station has been found gunned down. Andrea, who was once studying to become an FBI Profiler, has solved many mysteries in her day. Although her days are now filled with screaming children, she wants in on trying to solve this murder whether that’s her job or not.

Disgraced journalist Kenny Lee wants to solve this case as bad as Andrea, but for different reasons. His career took a major tumble, and he needs to write a really great story to get his life back on track. After running into Andrea while both of them are doing research, they decide to work together to solve the murder.

After some unusual and suspicious events take place that Andrea feels might be the result of racism, she and Kenny uncover part of a skeleton from years ago that might have ties to the fresh murder of the gas attendant...and they might uncover a decades long conspiracy and cover up that delves into racial tensions of the past and present.

As mentioned earlier, this book is at times hilarious, but with depth and suspense as the mystery plays out. It dives into the always relevant topic of systemic racism and doesn’t shy away at all. I would feel anger and sadness, and a minute later I was laughing again. That takes skill, and author Fabian Nicieza expertly balances it all with an intriguing mystery that is both heinous and compelling.

There are definitely parts of the novel that defy logic. For one, I don’t think cops or FBI agents would let Andrea and her children be present for arrests or suspect questioning. However, it’s so much F-ing fun (There’s A LOT of F-bombs...most of which are hilariously said by Andrea. There is also more derogatory and offensive language, so reader beware)! Andrea and Kenny are amazingly paired, and their interaction with each other was extremely entertaining. I loved both of them at the end of the day, and would love to read more about them in a sequel.

The buildup to the conclusion is definitely intense at times, and the ending is extremely satisfying...with the very last sentence cracking me up again. This one exceeded my expectations.

4.5 stars.

Thank you to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will be published on: 6/22/21.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

I couldn't put this book down. I started reading this book on my train into work, I finished it by the time I got back on the train to go home. Andrea, a million years pregnant, four small kids and a murder scene. Kenny wonderkid journalist, working his way back from disgrace and a murder that can put him back on the map. I am lousy at guessing the murderer in mysteries but the mystery of this murder was complicated yet so simple. I fell in love with the characters, Andrea, pregnant again, four small children and a murder that wakes up a long dormant side of her personality. Kenny a childhood friend a journalist working his way back from disgrace, a murder that is much more than it seems. The state of New Jersey is felt acutely throughout the book (the state is a character as well). Andrea is a woman buried under the demands of four tiny human that are relying on her plus the human that she's carrying in her body (making people is hard work and exhausting) plus a murder investigation. You really can get a feeling for the suburban experience in her trips to the train to collect her husband, trips to her kids various activities, and her own friend group and the similar challenges that they face in needing childcare, balancing their activities and those of their kids as well. I am so happy that I gave this book a try.