Willa C Richards

(9) This was quite good - an atmospheric rendering of a college girl's disappearance in 1991. She disappeared essentially the day the Jeffery Dahmer case broke and police didn't take her missing person case seriously. Her body was never found. Now ~ 20 years later, her dying mother has hired a psychic to find the body for some macabre closure. The story is told from her sister Peg's perspective from two time periods - present day and the summer Dee went missing. Peg and Dee were incredibly close and Peg blames herself despite having nothing to do with Dee's disappearance -- or did she? Is Peg an unreliable narrator? Or is just our memories that are unreliable?

Awesome premise and evocative prose. The psychic part fell flat for me though and in the end when the plot is summed up - there was not really much unravelled. But the story was engaging and Peg's character compelling. I think the parallel telling of Dahmer's victims, the glorification of serial killers, and the re-victimization of victim's families - especially when the victims are poor, black, gay, promiscuous, on drugs, what have you --- awful to contemplate. The author did a commendable job with this material and its nuances.

Well-written in the main. I would definitely read this author again. Perhaps many will be disappointed in the ending - but I respected it aesthetically. Recommended for lovers of the literary mystery or character driven psychological suspense such as Tana French, Ruth Rendell, Morag Joss come to my mind.… (más)

He drove us back to Ma's, and on the highway ramps, we passed over the police department and over the serial killer in his cell too. The downtown fell away from the highway as we headed west, away from the breweries and the factories churning out chocolate, and cheese, and sad, sad lives. Peter kept his eyes on the road.

In July, 1991, Peg's sister disappears. It's not a great time to be a missing person in Milwaukee given that the media have descended on the city and the police department is busy with the Jeffrey Dahmer case. It doesn't help that the detective assigned to the case is not that interested. Almost thirty years later, Peg's mother wants to hire a psychic to find her daughter's body. Peg is hoping she can finally get someone to look at the man she knows is responsible.

This novel is structured like a run-of-the-mill thriller, but there's more going on than finding out what happened. Richards is looking at how women are allowed to move through the world and which people get attention when they disappear, a topic highly relevant in these days when a missing social influencer, blonde, young and pretty, takes all the attention to the point where even the family of Gabrielle Petito point out that there are missing women who never rate a single mention. In this case, the first missing people who are ignored are the young, non-white gay men preyed upon by Dahmer, where the only people who care are family and friends. And then Peg's sister, caught in the middle of having too messy a life to matter and a police officer who isn't doing his job. Milwaukee is vividly rendered here -- it's wonderful when novels are published that aren't set in New York, London or any of the usual places. If you enjoyed Liz Moore's Long, Bright River, you'll enjoy this one.… (más)