This is the author's debut novel, and it is apparent from the first chapter that Kenney has used his extensive experience as a copy writer well.  As a contributor to The New Yorker, readers might be familiar with some of his stories in the humor collection Disquiet, Please.
The book opens with the main character, Fin Dolan, on a set where his national diaper account is being filmed.  The laugh-out-loud moments are numerous - a mix-up in casting the baby, temperamental clients, quirky co-workers, and in this scenario, a schedule-challenged VIP starring in the commercial.  The subject of diapers alone provides unlimited humor, some highbrow and some a bit raunchy.
But this book is much more than just a behind-the-scenes look at the advertising business.  Fin's estranged father is dying.  Fin - in his late thirties - is the youngest of four and their abusive father left the family when Fin was twelve.   None of his siblings are willing to participate in what turns out to be an anticlimactic event - his father's death - and the subsequent arrangements that have to be made.  Fin has had relationship and other detachment issues most of his life, but doesn't really know that or begin to work through them until he deals with his father's death and the things he learns about his father's life.
Unlike so many new cable series and films where each member of the cast is brilliant and the over-the-top witty dialogue sounds the same (spoken at the speed of lightening), John Kenney's characters are diverse, multi-dimensional and so believably true.  The writing is fast, smart, modern, funny and poignant.  One of my favorites reads this year. 

What a thriller this author's first novel turned out to be! Kate Moore and her family move to Luxembourg for her husband, Dexter's, work as a network security consultant. In what would normally be a challenging cultural transition for any normal mother and wife, Kate is not normal. Her previous job writing position papers for an innocuous US government department was a cover for her work as a CIA operative - a fact of which her husband and friends are unaware. As the family settles into their new environs, a friendly American couple befriends Kate and Dexter. Due to several incidents and possibly her paranoia, Kate begins to suspect that her husband's job might be a cover for something criminal and their new friends might not be who they purport to be. Communication from her old cohorts at the CIA adds credence to her suspicions and Kate fears that her past is coming back to haunt her. This fast-paced intelligently written book was hard to put down. The author combines Kate's hardened spy mentality with the real emotions of a mother and wife, whose relationship is suffering from trust issues, both real and imagined. The plot is laid out using non-sequential chronology - moving between future events, Kate's past experiences in the CIA, to present day Luxembourg - effectively keeping the reader guessing. A very contemporary and well done novel.

Marcus was born in Ethiopia and orphaned by the time he was three. He and his sister were adopted by a Swedish family, and in his Grandmother Helga's kitchen, his love of cooking was born. Armed with the love, warmth and high standards of his upbringing, Marcus pursues his aspiration to create a world view of food. As his talent and knowledge develop, he learns about more than just food in France and Switzerland's cutthroat kitchens; the mercurial trends of New York restaurants; the pressure of his White House dinner; and the discovery of everything encompassed by the word family as he travels back to Ethiopia to meet his birth-father. His revelations about relationships, success (and failures !), regret and sacrifice, are all documented honestly, and at times, with self-deprecating humor. Marcus's journey from the rigors of European culinary training to the opening of his own restaurant, Red Rooster, in Harlem are chronicled in this intelligently-written memoir that reads like a novel.