Goodbye Earl: A Revenge Novel

Cross-Smith’s lackluster latest (after Half-Blown Rose) follows four lifelong friends as they reunite for a wedding and conspire to put a stop to abusive men. Wealthy Ada Plum’s younger sister is getting married in Goldie, their small hometown in an unnamed Southern state. For the occasion, Ada’s friend Kasey Fritz returns from New York City for the first time in 15 years, long after the tragic death of Kasey’s mother and abuse she endured from her drug-running stepfather, Roy Dupont. Though Kasey is engaged to a kind man in New York, she feels a tug toward her old beau Silas Castelow, who’s now a cop. Rounding out the friend group are Rosemary Kingston, who’s back from Seattle, harboring a dark secret about herself, and Caroline Foxberry, a baker who stayed in Goldie and has recently married Trey, a rich local man known for his bad manners. After Trey beats Caroline badly enough to put her in the hospital, the besties conspire to kill him. As the plot ramps up, the author develops a parallel story involving the summer of 2004, when the foursome talked about killing Roy to protect Kasey’s mother. Cross-Smith’s villains are cartoonishly evil—the men, plus Trey’s coddling mother—and though the friends’ motivations are understandable, the story nonetheless feels contrived. Readers will be disappointed. Agent: Kerry D'Agostino, Curtis Brown and Simon Lipskar, Writers House. (July)