ALC Review: Kaplan's Plot by Jason Diamond
- Story Eater
- Sep 8, 2025
- 3 min read
Release date: 9 September 2025
Rating: 4/5
Narrators: Alex Knox, Neil Hellegers
Synopsis: Elijah Mendes was hoping for a more triumphant return to Chicago. His mother, Eve, is dying of cancer, his business flamed out, and he has nowhere else to go. So he returns to Chicago feeling listless and shattered, worried about how he’s going to help his mother despite their chilly relationship. He finds some inspiration when he discovers that their family owns a Jewish cemetery and that a man he’s never heard of, his great-uncle Solomon Kaplan, is buried in a plot there. With a new sense of purpose—and an excuse to talk more deeply with his mother—Elijah begins pursuing a family mystery of extraordinary proportions.
Elijah discovers his grandfather Yitz, Eve’s father, was a powerful gangster in the 1920s. She was ashamed and never spoke about him to Elijah. As secrets unravel, the past and present become intertwined, and Yitz’s story forces Elijah and Eve to bond in ways they never have before and begin to accept each other, not as who they wish they were but as they both are.
Review
I wasn't sure about this book. It's not science fiction or fantasy. The setting is urban. The synopsis mentions an American "underworld," which means there's a mob element to it. (I tend to get bored with mob/gang/ club, etc stories.) Basically, a lot of things about this book are on my not really interested to read about list. Perhaps the mystery of the grave plot and the element of a family secret drew me in. By the end, I didn't feel like the book wasted my time, and I'm always pretty impressed with books well outside my usual bookish zone of interest that capture my attention, especially if they do it like this one did.
Don't get me wrong; my aversion to the elements laid out in the synopsis of this book are strictly preference. I'm a SFF geek all the way. I dabble in genres set in the stark and boring real world, but the venturings are relatively rare and usually because the stories have a ton of buzz or one of my favorite book nerds tells me to read them. Kaplan's Plot, inexplicably, held my interest in a stranglehold. I cannot articulate with any specificity the reasons why.
I've heard from a really smart person that historical fiction is very much like fantasy because it's set in a different world that functions in different ways from ours, and I think in a general, vague sense that may be the attraction to Elijah's journey to finding out about his grandfather and great uncle's life. The Odessa men started with a backstory that piqued my attention early on. Also, I liked their mom. I loved their mom, actually.
If my arm were twisted, I'd say on instinct that the 1920's setting (the roaring 20's is one of my favorite time periods in history) and the subtle humor tacked onto an absolutely traumatic foundation to the characters' lives drew me in to this one. Though I don't have the generational trauma Elijah, Yitz, Eve, and Solomon carry, I have lost loved ones to illness and been separated from my family. The gut-twisting dread tempered with a bit of levity felt simultaneously soothing and deeply comforting. As Elijah's story melded with Yitz and Solomon's, the secrets unraveled, and a pretty huge, heartbreaking twist socked me in the gut. Kaplan's Plot is not a book for the faint of heart. If you like sad ones that also leave you with a healthy dose of anger and an urge to throw hands with someone fictional for hurting your adopted peeps who also don't exist, you'll love this one.
The audiobook treats listeners with a generous two narrators for Kaplan's Plot. Hellegers and Knox each narrate the different timelines of the story, and I liked both of them. Though I was oblivious to pronunciation, I did have someone who also listened tell me some of it was incorrect. I know a couple of folks from Chicago, but I've never been there and haven't listened to a whole lot of folks from there speak, so I don't have any expertise on accent, either. The reading was generally clear and the tone and enunciation made it easy for me to listen with speed, though.
Overall, 4/5 for the story and 4/5 for the narration. I did like the overall plot and the writing style excelled; I felt the end was a bit anticlimactic after the reveal, but I'll owe that to my own taste of SFF stories and the tidy, vengeful bows they tie in the end. The narration was great, too.
My thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
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