The Mortician's Daughter [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2006

A suspended New York City policewoman returns home to a small New England mill town to investigate the murder of her best friend's son

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Bloom's twisting, turning sophomore effort (after 2005's See Isabelle Run), Ginny Lavoie, a New York City policewoman under investigation for corruption, receives a distraught phone call from her childhood friend Sonya who lives in Ginny's hometown in western Massachusetts. Sonya's teenage son has been found beaten to death, and she wants Ginny to help sort out what happened—the local authorities are strangely eager to close the case. Back in the depressed, postindustrial town she left years ago, Ginny is compelled to confront a past she has long tried to leave behind. Though some of Bloom's supporting characters strain credibility, she reveals enough of Ginny's interior musings to lend the lead character considerable depth. An excellent sense of place serves the story well, and bits of regional humor further enliven the action. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

Ginny Lavoie may be depressed over her suspension from the New York Police Department, but her woes pale in comparison to those of her childhood friend, Sonya, whose 19-year-old adopted son, Danny, was savagely murdered in their hometown of North Adams, Massachusetts. (Sonya took over the care of Danny the moment her deadbeat sister left the 15-month-old at her doorstep.) Ginny returns to the onetime mill town to investigate and is soon exchanging barbs with the bombastic local police chief and kisses with her old high-school sweetheart, Jimmy. Danny's troubles, it seems, coincided with his search for his birth mother, but who in the town didn't want them to reconnect? No one, it seems, is above suspicion, from a homeless Vietnam vet to a cool Manhattanite known for dealing crystal meth. More deaths--and a grim discovery at a popular town landmark--lead determined Ginny to a series of startling truths. Bloom (See Isabelle Run, 2005) delivers suspense and a colorful, if somewhat cliched, portrait of life in a small New England town. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press (August 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892967862
• ISBN-13: 978-0892967865
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #578,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "For the first time in forever, her hometown felt like home", August 25, 2006

By 

M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Mortician's Daughter (Hardcover)

Suspended by the New York Police Department and currently under investigation for some shady dealings with a bent cop, the thirty-something Ginny Lavoie returns to her hometown of North Adams, Massachusetts to investigate the death of Danny Markowicz a nineteen-year-old stepson of Sonya, Ginny's best friend from high school.

Handsome and athletic, Danny was considered the all American boy, he liked to act sing and write sappy poetry, and he wanted to go to college and was willing to work to get there. Reportedly beloved by all, his death comes as a brutal shock. Found on the floor of a deserted mill, Danny was beaten to death so bad no one could recognize him, his face so pulverized they had to identify him through dental records.

Investigating the crime scene, Ginny spies the evidence - a vast pool of blood, splatter marks on the walls and floor, but finds no weapon. Vietnam veteran Jumping Jack O'Brien - once the town's harmless lunatic, now it's resident pariah - confesses to the crime. Ginny visits him in prison but he's a babbling mess and a professional psycho. It doesn't take long for Ginny to release that no way could Jack have committed the crime.

From one lead to another, Ginny traces the clues back to Danny's birth mother Paula, who allegedly left town twenty years ago to start a new life in the city, leaving a trail of men behind her. While Sonya was the kind of girl you'd hope your son might marry, her sister Paula was the kind you'd hope your son would steer clear of, a promiscuous, truant, and expert manipulator, Paula had been every mother's nightmare.

The trail also turns to the Café des Artistes, where Ginny meets a bunch of groovy city boys - including Danny's friend Topher - whom Danny had been hanging out with just before his death. But were the boys more than just friends? And when the specter of crystal meth raises its ugly head, Ginny is by turns jubilant at this new information and depressed by a lack of progress in determining the killer.

The questions gradually pile up - why did Danny keep a loaded gun in his bedroom? What was he doing in that abandoned mill? And who could possibly have hated him enough to beat him to death? And why are the local authorities - led by an incompetent and corrupt cop - so eager to close the case? Ginny is hampered in her investigation, by her past and her relationship with Jimmy, her childhood sweetheart - reconnecting with him reopens old passions as well as old wounds.

Author Elizabeth Bloom proves herself quite adept at writing this type of police procedural, managing to combine compelling characters, red herrings, and clues with some unexpected twists and turns in the story. Obviously the central aspect of this tale is Ginny's growth as a person and as a detective, and her ultimate realization that she did indeed share a lot in common with Danny - both yearned for a life beyond this small town, chafed at the shackles of their family's expectation.

Ginny is a gutsy, tough-minded and fearless cop and although at first she is branded as an outsider - someone who once left, she is soon thrust back into the inner workings of North Adams' hierarchy, all the while staying loyal to Sonya, determined root out the bad guy.

Bloom also skillfully presents the conflicted human condition, bringing to the forefront the murk of small town life and how these essentially working class people must cope with the aftermath of such a violent act. Drug abuse, entrenched homophobia, and religious and political hypocrisy and the how bereaved must cope with the loss of a loved one is at the center of this well-paced and quite persuasive crime thriller. Mike Leonard August 06.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling mystery with a great sense of place, September 2, 2006

By 

Mystery Fan (Elmhurst, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mortician's Daughter (Hardcover)

The plot has already been written about, so I will just say that the story, characters, and setting grabbed me almost immediately. Ginny Lavoie, NYC cop back in her old hometown, is a great protagonist--tough, saavy, and irreverently witty. Highly recommended, as are the Alex Bernier mysteries the author wrote as Beth Saulnier.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good read, September 27, 2006

By 

Sparkle J. (Tuscaloosa, AL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mortician's Daughter (Hardcover)

I wasn't familiar with this author, but really enjoyed the read. I liked the descriptions of the characters and town. I especially liked the transformation of Sonya. I would have liked a little more "up front" information on Ginny, the main character, but the author pulled it together at the end of the story. Especially satisfying was the rekindled romance with Ginny's ex high school boyfriend.