First published 2019
Maddie Schwartz walks away from twenty years of marriage in 1966 Baltimore, trading her comfortable housewife existence for dreams of becoming a journalist. She helps police solve a murder case, which lands her a position at the Star newspaper. Maddie fixates on her next big story: Cleo Sherwood, a young Black woman found dead in a park fountain. While white victims would attract media attention, Cleo's death barely registers in the papers. Maddie pursues the case despite indifference from editors and warnings from Cleo's ghost, who accuses her of caring more about death than life. The investigation pulls Maddie into contact with jewelry clerks, waitresses, baseball players, and cops who once existed on her periphery. She begins an affair with Ferdie, a police officer whose risks she fails to grasp. Maddie's tunnel vision and self-centered ambition blind her to the people closest to her, setting in motion consequences that will devastate those around her.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, african-american, crime, detective, journalism
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, investigative-journalism, social-justice, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Baltimore
Period: 1966
340 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow
Content warnings: racism, sexism