The writing is very good, and the story is well-told. Plus, it has some meaningfulness that matters. So, what more could you want?
Well, a couple of things. Rosenfield's book isn't just a clever mystery. The intrigue is more about identity than detective work. And while the crime-solving adds tension & suspense to the telling, it isn't the driving force of the story. Which is the fun part, for me.
The key is an examination of identity - who we are as individuals, in an age where anyone can be anything they want to be - except themselves.
Rosenfield's maneuver is to posit a fake, Adrienne Richards, who is the composite of what she's supposed to be. She's the rich young beautiful trophy wife of a highly successful financial swindler. But since her husband got caught - exposed and societally condemned - she's adrift of the phony world that was their upscale paradise. They've avoided jail, as filthy rich people do. And kept most of their ill-gotten gains, as clever crooks also do.
But in the sham world of glam, they're socially ostracized, which is a fate worse than death when your whole life is make believe. So naturally, they end up in the middle of nowhere - the backwoods of Maine.
In normal circumstance, we'd see the cottage on the lake where there's no one around to bother you; surrounded by trees, sunshine, squirrels and deers, as an idyllic escape from the hectic crush of the city. But in our upside down point of view, country charm is just a place to hide when no one wants to be seen with you. And the villagers who live there aren't real people anyway, just clowns and bumpkins to poke fun at, or not even notice at all.
So when one of the bumpkins is murdered in a grizzly horrible way, it seems almost inevitable. Even the locals aren't surprised. Because they'd long since figured out that the dead girl, Lizzie Ouelette, was the person least likely to succeed, even in a small town full of losers.
The only thing no one figured on was that Lizzie wanted to live too. But in a world of fake identities, anyone can take a life and nobody cares. It's not even sad, in a strange way. The trick is to kill someone that nobody would miss. The tragedy and the horror is, when no one is real, that could be anybody.
The dead girl's revenge is in the hands of a dogged state cop, who's over-worked and too long on the road. The question is, does he alone care enough to get at truth for a girl who just doesn't matter. The answer is as plain as...
