redlight

She listened to the waves. To the Traffic. To the little kitchen TV turned low: an evangelist bleating for money. To the clump of someone on the old walkway. To her heart, fast and heavy in her chest. Merci felt most alive when working for the dead. She'd always loved an underdog.

Merci Rayborn is an ambitious detective, a woman whose drive has been tempered but not weakened by her past. She has given birth to a son, a tiny bundle of perfection that is her world, and the only pleasant memory of her romance with Tim Hess, a partner and lover that she lost two years ago. She's dating Mike McNally, whose golden looks and gentle competence has made him a popular man on the force. She's a woman desperately searching for some sort of peace, but the case that she's about to be faced with will strip that away.

Aubrey Whittaker is murdered in her beautiful shore side apartment. There are few facts that are clear...she was having dinner and she knew the man who killed her because she opened the door for him. She was a prostitute, and so her clients are on top of the list of suspects, but it is the discovery of Mike's prints and Mike's slightly suspicious letters to the girl that hurt Merci's world. She sneaks into his house and conducts a search, and the results are not favorable. The real battle isn't really finding Aubrey's murderer, but how Merci can deal with the probability that the man she sort of loves did it, coupled with the disgust she feels for her actions.

This is not the only murder Merci must solve. She is assigned a cold case from 1969, the murder of another prostitute named Patty Bailey. Patty was hanging out with some very important people...and her sister claims that Patty knew the culprits of a viscous beating that made major headlines back then. Merci is literally handed clues from an unknown source; and discovering the source's motives is almost as important as the crime itself. Patty and Aubrey's cases make for an interesting contrast, for both women were very different, and the cases are both fascinating, woven together in odd ways despite the fact they have no real link.

The thing that I like the most about this story is Merci. She has been scarred by her past mistakes. A killer deceived her, and that fear of deception haunts her. There is one scene, where she tries on one of Aubrey's brand new outfits, trying to see herself through Mike's eyes, trying to discover what Mike was thinking...and it becomes incredibly poignant. The theme of this book becomes about how the people around us deceive us...how our own thinking often tricks us into believing things we shouldn't. Merci is always thinking things out carefully, yet she knows there are blind spots. There were blind spots in her relationship with Mike that come brutally to light when she discovers his relationship with Aubrey. By the end of the book, most people in some way will have lied to her, which is ironic since she has paid the price for being deceived before, and is trying very hard not to pay it again. She feels very real, and the way she thinks, the things she worries about, the way she always checks the back seat and the way she acts around her son all make up for a very strong character, one I felt compassionately for, even as I admired her.

This is the second Merci Rayborn book. Blue Hour is the previous book, and Black Water is the next. I look forward to seeing how Merci develops and makes peace with her world.

(Reviewed by Cindy Lynn Speer for Mostly Fiction 08-01-02)