Starred review from April 12, 2021
The murder of a gas station attendant in West Windsor, N.J., propels this outstanding debut novel from Nicieza, the cocreator of the comic book superhero Deadpool. Andrea Stern—mother of four with a fifth on the way—stumbles across the victim while looking for a bathroom for her kids. The perpetually exhausted Andrea, who gave up her dreams of becoming an FBI profiler when she first became pregnant, decides to investigate and, after finding glaring inconsistencies in the sloppy police work, vows to track down the killer. Meanwhile, disgraced investigative reporter Kenneth Lee is attempting to resurrect his career with a story that uncovers the criminal behind the first murder in the West Windsor–Plainsboro area in more than 30 years. Together Andrea and Kenneth uncover a grand-scale conspiracy driven by racism and institutional bigotry that has lasted generations and continues to plague the township. Nicieza delivers a wildly entertaining blend of high-octane snark and brass-knuckle social commentary, but it’s the courageous Andrea and her group of soccer moms, whom she privately dubs the Cellulitists, who steal the show. Mystery fans looking for something different won’t want to miss this quirky crime novel. Agent: Albert Lee, United Talent Agency.
May 1, 2021
Nicieza, a comics writer best known as co-creator of the wisecracking antihero Deadpool for Marvel, pivots to his first mystery here but keeps the comic-book energy and zaniness. Nicieza is irreverent (sometimes cringingly so) throughout, starting with his depiction of the gunshot murder of a 22-year-old gas-station attendant as "Satkunananthan's Very Bad Day." The setting is West Windsor, New Jersey, where nothing much ever happens, and the cops aren't equipped to deal with it when it does. Enter former FBI-trained profiler Andie Stern and investigative journalist Kenneth Lee. Stern stepped away to raise a family; Lee is on the way down from winning a Pulitzer years ago and now scavenges for a local paper. Both see redemption in trying to solve the trio of gas-station murders over the past six months. To that end, they uncover a system of ignoring crimes against Asians on the part of police and a thick vein of anti-Asian bias in the community. Scathing and timely social commentary in a comic mystery.
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Starred review from April 15, 2021
From the co-creator of Deadpool: Two unlikely suburban misfits team up to solve two very real murders in "a small American town rife with racial and cultural prejudice." Kenneth Lee peaked early as a reporter when he broke a major sex scandal; unfortunately, those glory days are far behind him. Andrea Stern, once an up-and-coming FBI profiler responsible for catching a serial killer, is now hugely pregnant with her fifth child and spends her days toting her other four kids to and from the train station to drop off and pick up her commuter husband. When Andrea pulls into a gas station parking lot and happens upon a murder scene--the victim was Satkunananthan Sasmal, who'd been pumping gas--her sharp eyes and analytical brain instantly register some key details. A few days later, after a chance encounter with some Indian American women who lay out the realities of racism in the community--they can't even get their requests to put pools in their backyards approved, much less count on the cops to solve a murder--Andrea is hit with an idea that takes her deep into the local records. She teams up with Kenny, whom she knew when they were teenagers, and soon they're uncovering bones from a decades-old murder that is directly related to the recent shooting. Along the way, Andrea discovers how much she loves using her brain for something other than planning her children's schedules, and Kenny reestablishes his willingness to do whatever he can to break a major story. (As Andrea says, "He was a dick, but he was good at it.") The obvious play on dicks really sums up the tone of the novel. Satire is hard to establish and even harder to maintain, but Nicieza flawlessly critiques the pervasiveness of suburban racism, the challenge of stay-at-home motherhood, the toxic culture of White masculinity, and the self-aggrandizing role of the media, and he does it with a pair of completely flawed yet appealing characters and a diverse cast of voices. Delightfully irreverent and so very entertaining.
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