Alice Feeney. Daisy Darker. Ebook download from TPL. Canada: Flatiron Books/Macmillan, 2022.
Certainly Feeney comes up with offbeat plots, but this one is not so original: A group of people isolated on a tiny tidal-flat island in a storm. Owner of the property called Seaglass is Nana Darker, having invited her family to celebrate her eightieth birthday. It’s a family whose members normally avoid each other. Youngest granddaughter, Daisy Darker, is our narrator. As she tells it, her heart is broken, literally. A rare heart disease left her with a limited lifespan that she has already outlived. But she wants us to know she is hiding a secret. Daisy is the only one who shares Nana’s love for this strange old house where she and her sisters spent so many summers.
Sister Rose is a veterinarian; she once saved five-year-old Daisy from drowning. Sister Lily often bullied Daisy as a child; now she is an endless whiner, mooching money from Nana. Mother of the flowery trio is Nancy, as self-absorbed as Lily. Nana’s son Frank is their father, long divorced from Nancy; he is an orchestra conductor, memorable only for long absences from home. Lily’s fifteen-year-old daughter Trixie is the sole fourth generation Darker. An unexpected guest is Conor, the boy who more or less grew up with Nancy’s three girls, at least in summertime. Daisy throws us hints about everyone’s past relationship with him, especially herself. Into this tense gathering, Nana produces her birthday cake a day early. She gives them a synopsis of her recently prepared will—no one is pleased with the surprises therein.
After they’ve all retired, Nana is found dead on the kitchen floor at midnight. There’s no way to go or send for help. On the kitchen chalkboard are some doggerel verses, ominously alluding to the death of each family member. They are instructed to play tapes of old family events that evoke past interactions, feuds, and Daisy’s lonely childhood. They are all feeling bedevilled; is someone dangerous hiding here to kill them all? The deaths begin. So far, it’s a classic thriller. But I’ve expressed some irritation with Feeney before ‒ protagonists repetitively belabouring their troubled feelings, often tritely (see examples) – and the climax here was so artificial, contrived, that it spoiled the overall effect for me. No, no, no.
An off of writer.
Bland? Bits
▪ I think knowing you might die sooner rather than later does make a person live life differently. (10)
▪ The lies we tell for love are the lightest shade of white. (18)
▪ The bad feeling I have about this weekend returns, but I don’t know why. (20)
▪ Childhood is a race to find out who you really are, before you become the person you are going to be. Not everybody wins. (21)
▪ “Everyone you know is both good and bad. It’s part of being human.” (110)
▪ There are things we all should know better, but being human means you can never know it all. (158)
▪ Sometimes we have to let go of what we had in order to hold on to what we’ve got. (202)
▪ Sometimes when people try too hard to be more than they are, they end up being less than they were. (319)
Better? Bits
▪ I never leave me alone with myself for too long; I can’t be trusted. (24)
▪ Conor folds his arms. “But I’m not convinced she died of natural causes.” (89)
▪ Her two plaits were on her pillow. Someone had cut them clean off her head in the night. (235)
▪ Nana smiled. “I’ll always keep your secrets, my darling girl.” (243)
▪ “She’s dead,” Rose confirms, having checked for a pulse. (254)
▪ “This is not your family. I am your family, and I don’t want you coming here anymore.” (266)
▪ Sometimes it felt like she wanted me to stay sick and vulnerable forever. (288)
Sara Paretsky. Overboard. USA: William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2022.
As if private eye Vic Warshawski doesn’t have enough work to do, two chance occurrences make her even busier. Her dog Mitch finds an injured girl hiding in construction rubble; she’s taken to Beth Israel Hospital where Vic's friends Lotty and Max are significant figures. Then a young man in distress acosts her for family help; turns out Brad is the son of Donny Litvak, a nemesis from Vic's childhood. The girl can’t or won’t speak, either to Vic or the cops. Brad overheard a phone call, afraid his father is in big trouble—Vic knows Donny's background of running errands for the Mob. She has a soft spot for the teenage kids, never mind she's obligated to be keeping watch on a synagogue for recidivist vandals.
The wounded girl (named Julia) disappears from the hospital; what did she have that the police are so eager to find? Why does malicious Lt Coney of the Chicago PD beat on Vic at every opportunity, mistakenly thinking she possesses the mystery object? Who's behind the other threats? Brad follows his mother to her tryst with an unknown man at a dilapidated riverside mansion owned by Silvia Zigler. These two family points—Litvak and Zigler―have their own seemingly endless collateral mysteries and connections. They start coming together for Vic when she suffers through yet another angry Litvak family confrontation. Dead bodies fall, while Vic is running for her life. A couple of chase sequences here are breathtakingly memorable.
Vic is caught in a web of corruption: developers, real estate agents, contractors, gamblers, for-profit care homes (that subject popping up again), and police. The depiction of brutality by some police is shocking; equally so, that they get away with it despite complaint reports. The author is not exaggerating. Yet the better elements of humanity are not lacking in the story. Paretsky is an expert at spinning her plot just so, then pulling it tighter and tighter until the tension is hard to bear. Her characters are wide-ranging and realistic; taken together they evoke a remarkably visual cross-section of big city life. Violence is part of it, not to everyone's taste.
An off of writer (did I ever notice that before?)
Vic
▪ "It's okay," I said. "Strip searching is horrible and degrading. I've been through it." (132)
▪ "Sonia, what did he and Donny get up to the night Donny trashed your father's van?" (137)
▪ But the nursing homes had elaborate layers of ownership, making it impossible for ordinary citizens to find who was actually behind the red curtain. (225)
▪ Why was an officer of his rank so involved in the small affairs of the Litvak and Zigler families? (237)
▪ The Zigler house itself, or at least the land it stood on, was getting more valuable by the day. (237)
▪ Coney marched over to me and grabbed the lapels of my blazer, shook me. "What did you do with the jacket?" (255)
▪ I'd sucked in a breath as I dove, and the water pushed the mask into my throat. (269)
▪ The building didn't seem to be under surveillance, but these days, with drone technology, you could be watched by a hundred eyes without knowing it. (293)
▪ I took off, Saint Joan of Chicago, ready to put the grandmother back where she belonged in her own home. (297)
▪ " ... this invention of Reggie's. It went missing just about the time Donny got that threatening phone call." (350)
▪ "All I have to do is keep a bent cop and a cement company from capturing a teenage girl. And not get in their gunsights in the process." (386)
Other Bits
▪ "I looked you up, and they said you solved some amazing cases. Fraud, all kinds of things." (71)
▪ "We think she witnessed a major crime. We need to get her on ice." (95)
▪ "I have a warrant to search you and your premises, Warshawsky, and another warrant to take you into custody if you resist." (147)
▪ "I don't care whether Warshawsky lives or dies," Ashleigh said. "But I want my son back." (401)
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