Northbury Papers Book

Asked why she is fascinated by the "popular" (read "trashy") novels of 19th-century writer Serena Northbury, Professor Karen Pelletier says, "She's the only novelist I know from that era who writes about the kind of courage it takes to get through life day by day. No white whales. No uncharted forests. No scarlet letters. No great heroics at all. Just food and drink and perseverance. And ordinary kindness. And ordinary love." Then, to herself, she thinks, "A totally banal literary exegesis. If anyone in the English Department at Enfield heard it, I'd be drummed out of the profession." Serena Northbury doesn't exist: as Joanne Dobson tells us in an afterword, she's based on a novelist named Emma Southworth and also on Jo March, Louisa May Alcott's alter ego in Little Women. Karen Pelletier isn't real, either, but this second book about her (after Quieter Than Sleep) continues to make her one of the most interesting characters in recent crime fiction. Carpers might say that certain plot twists point to trouble down the road: both books are about missing old manuscripts; both have female scholarship students being sexually harassed by rich and/or powerful men; both find people Karen knows being murdered. As the increasingly attractive local cop, Lieutenant Piotrowski, says, "It's not that I don't appreciate your help. We coulda never unraveled this without you. But why does it always have to come to gunplay? Huh, Doctor? Can you tell me that? A nice quiet teacher like yourself: Why do you always end up facing a gun?" Well, lieutenant, it worked for Jessica Fletcher... --Dick Adler Read More