I've read several of Laura Lippman's many novels, the most recent being the wonderful Sunburn, which I reviewed here last year. Lippman is possibly best known as the author of a series of police procedurals featuring Tess Monaghan, a journalist turned P.I., but it is her standalone novels which have grabbed me the most and this one, set in the 1960s, is no exception. The protagonist here is another journalist or rather, at the start, a would-be journalist. This is Maddie Swartz, who, as the novel begins, has recently separated from her husband and has never worked at all. Her life has up to now been that of a conventional middle-class Jewish housewife. Now she decides all this must change, and she manages to get her foot into the door of the Star newspaper, initially in an admin job. However she is anxious to become a proper reporter, and the opportunity arise when she and a friend discover the dead body of a young woman named Tessie Fine. Excited at having such a crucial role in the mystery, Maddie writes her first piece for the paper, only to find it has to be edited - basically rewritten - by one of the paper's senior reporters.
Soon, however, another chance puts her once again at the heart of a new murder. This time it is that of a young black woman, Cleo Sherwood. Missing for several months, her body is discovered in a fountain in nearby Druid Hill Park, as a result of a phone call made by Maddie. However she is soon to discover that the death of a black girl does not warrant the extensive coverage allotted to her first discovery. Undterred, she sets about investigating Cleo's murder on her own, a task which brings her into unfamiliar territory as she encounters a secretly gay male couple ('the Baltimore Bachelors'), a nightclub owner and a political fixer, and attempts to get information from Cleo's mother and sister.
Although Maddie is the centre of the novel, we hear the voices of a number of different characters as well, including that of Cleo herself. Maddie is a great character, strong and determined if at times rather blind to the way her enquiries are smashing their way into hitherto innocent lives. In fact she has a secret of her own - she has taken a lover, a black policeman who visits her at night, arriving in an illegally borrowed police car as black officers are not issued with vehicles. It's a satisfyingly intense relationship but Maddie underestimates the powerful feelings that are stirred up and things do not end well. This strand of the plot is just one of the many elements of period detail which provoke thought about how much has changed since the mid-60s and how much has remained the same. The novel is published today and I recommend it highly.
