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Good Bad Woman

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2002 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Mystery

From the book cover:
Frankie Richmond is a London Barrister long on attitude and short on lucrative work. Her chaotic private life interrupts her professional one far too often but never so dangerously as when she agrees to defend an old friend. A routine appearance at a magistrate's court catapults Frankie into a nightmare from which she wakes up to find herself arrested - for murder. The police would love to see her go down so Frankie sets out to solve the case herself - whilst trying to revive her flagging career, disentangle her mercurial friendships and meet the woman of her dreams. As she steps up her search for the killer - and a particularly elusive Sir Douglas Quintet track- Frankie's talent for sowing confusion is given full rein, particularly when clearing her name involves exposing some unsavoury truths about those closest to her.

In this book we are introduced to the court lawyer Frances "Frankie" Richmond. Frankie has a working class background, and struggles to fit in a working milieu where people are "rich, posh and privileged", like her lawyer friend Kay. She is a sensitive person and has decided to abandon criminal law for family law because she couldn't deal with it, but still deals badly with how justice does not prevail in abuse cases. She has an obsession for Motown music and a deprecating and humorous view of her life that is not going that well since she is having to deal with a possible murder indictment, an unreliable car, a bank overdraft and the mixed messages of Margo, a club singer with whom she has fallen in lust.
Although there are also subplots involving other characters such as her mother, her ex-lover Kay, her best friend Lena, and the law-clerk Gavin, the book is mostly a whodunit. Frankie is a murder suspect and wants to prove her innocence and there is a convoluted plot where things are not what they seem to be. However, in terms of plot Elizabeth Woodcraft seems to have given up the whodunit before the end of the book, and the reader is able to easily solve the mystery. Also the book fails in the attempts at humour, and then there are the characters in the book, which may be convincing but are not that memorable. However, Elizabeth Woodcraft shows potential as a writer.