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In the twelfth installment of the Tess Monaghan series, the journalist-turned-private-investigator has a particularly unpleasant job to do. For reasons she can't quite explain, her old friend Tyner Gray wants her to work for a wealthy woman who became notorious in Baltimore years earlier. On a hot day, Melisandre Harris drove to a park and sat in the shade under a tree, leaving her infant daughter to die in the car. Many Baltimoreans questioned the verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. After living abroad for years, Melisandre has returned to star in her own self-financed documentary about the case and to reconnect with the two daughters she left behind with her estranged husband.
Now that Tess is a mother herself of three-year-old Carla Scout, working for a woman who killed her baby isn't a pleasant thought. It's made far more unpleasant thanks to Melisandre's imperious manner. For her, money is no object and politeness is beneath her. So why is Tyner so devoted to her?
Tess and her partner, Sandy Sanchez, take the case in spite of her misgivings, and watching the family dynamics unfold as the documentary project falls apart is half the fun. The other half is seeing a terrific writer weave together Tess's own feelings of anxiety and inadequacy as a mother bounce against the harsh contours of Melisandre's rude and manipulative character. Another character with a young child describes motherhood vividly: "Being a mother was like being trapped in the first fifteen minutes of a horror film. Everything was fine, lovely. But there was this persistent sense of dread."
Some of the story is in the form of transcripts from the unfinished documentary, interviews conducted by a frustrated filmmaker whose career took off fast and went off a cliff faster. Parts of the story are seen from the points of view of the two daughters, the new wife of Melisandre's ex, Sandy Sanchez, and Tess's beloved aunt Kitty. These multiple perspectives draw the reader in to put the pieces of a rather complex puzzle together while also raising with sensitivity and verve serious questions about the burdens we place on women when they become responsible for a child. It's beautifully constructed to be both entertaining and thought-provoking without showing any seams between the two.
§ Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, columnist, and author of the Anni Koskinen mystery series.
Reviewed by Barbara Fister, March 2015
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