It's always good to read a good murder mystery: Who She Was by Braylee Parkinson

 

This book was offered as a Kindle special which is a great way to discover new writers, especially with the second-hand bookshops closed.

Set in Detroit and Ann Arbor – which is a refreshing change from New York, San Francisco and Chicago – Who She Was captures the attention from the start and continues its pace through the book. While plot-driven, the characters develop well and are interesting and individual.

While set in the contrasting worlds of comfortable affluence and grinding poverty, drug addiction and dysfunctional families, Parkinson does not fall into stereotypes or become preachy. The hero (Sylvia Wilcox) is a former cop now private investigator. She is haunted by events of her past, but doesn’t use them as an excuse or crutch.

The plotting is tight and the ending has the requisite, “I should have seen that coming!” quality about it. It is a detective story that does not deceive – it’s all there, the real clues, the false trails, the dead-ends. At no time is the reader misled. Wilcox methodically follows such evidence as there is in a two-year-old murder. She has to judge people and decide who is lying to her, who is concealing things and who is being straight.

What Wilcox has is a subtle but strong moral compass. She talks about going to Mass and talking to her parish priest, and does this in a way that is natural and convincing. It also reveals some of her motivation and general intentions in life.

This extends to the treatment of race (both by Wilcox and, obviously, by Parkinson). Race is a factor in the novel, but it is not the dominating factor, nor is it used as an excuse for social comment or a political platform. People are people in this novel. Some are villains, some are victims, some are caught in the middle and some are unscathed.

Race, drugs, poverty, and ignorance are elements that build the characters and drive the plot. They do not distract from the story telling, but add to its texture and credibility.

While not a ground-breaking novel, Who She Was is an accomplished piece of writing and plotting. I shall certainly read more of Parkinson and expect we will all hear more about her, too.