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crtsjffrsn's review
3.0
Erica Donato is an urban history graduate student, balancing the completion of her dissertation with being a single mom. Her research focuses on 1930s Brownsville, during a period of time when the area was heavy with organized crime. A stop at a library in the area leads Erica to meet a teenager named Savanna, a young woman with a bright future ahead of her. But when Savanna is attacked, Erica wonders if there might be a connection to some young men who accosted her one day when she was leaving the library. And when she realizes he was in a class with Savanna's mother years ago, she finds herself even more connected to the story and the case. Erica Donato is curious and never one to let her knack for research go to waste...
Typically in a murder mystery, the search for the suspect leads us down a path of finding someone who is depraved or sinister. But so many times, crimes are committed as a result of circumstance. Or, in the case of younger criminals, sometimes they just don't know that they have any other choice. This story takes us down that other path--the path where social pressures and the folly of youth can lead people to harm others just as easily as a criminal nature. And those are paths that are much more difficult for us to follow, not only when it comes to figuring out "whodunnit" but also accepting the answer once we find it.
This is the third Erica Donato book, but you don't necessarily need to have read any of the others. I hadn't before reading this, and I had no problems at all following and understanding the story. It's very self-contained.
Typically in a murder mystery, the search for the suspect leads us down a path of finding someone who is depraved or sinister. But so many times, crimes are committed as a result of circumstance. Or, in the case of younger criminals, sometimes they just don't know that they have any other choice. This story takes us down that other path--the path where social pressures and the folly of youth can lead people to harm others just as easily as a criminal nature. And those are paths that are much more difficult for us to follow, not only when it comes to figuring out "whodunnit" but also accepting the answer once we find it.
This is the third Erica Donato book, but you don't necessarily need to have read any of the others. I hadn't before reading this, and I had no problems at all following and understanding the story. It's very self-contained.
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