by Ivy Pochoda (Harper Collins)
Ivy Pochoda is one of those rare authors who, with a talent for fluid and highly descriptive prose, engages the reader immediately.
She has set her mysterious story in Red Hook, an area in Brooklyn, New York, near where she grew up. Hence Pochoda is able to immerse the reader in a familiar neighbourhood, peppered with the sort of rich, melting-pot of multi-ethnic characters she came across in her youth.
And the characters are fascinating.
It all begins on a humid summer’s night. Two 15-year-old friends, June Giatto and Val Marino, too young to boogie – and with too much idle time on their hands – decide to cool off by taking an inflatable raft out into the, not exactly enticing, NYC bay. As Pochoda puts it, a “stagnant summer brew of diesel and salt”.
Only one girl comes back.
She is found, the following morning, half drowned on the shore, by Jonathan Sprouse – a theatre wannabe/music teacher, with his own story to tell.
Before they set sail, the two girls had also come to the notice of local boy Cree, who followed their trail from the bank – until they disappeared into the dark.
The nucleus of the story dwells on the disappearance of the girl, how her friend is left to cope with a disaster she can hardly get her head around and how Cree, the last person to see them both alive, reacts.
The mysterious death also affects the lives of a mix of Red Hook dwellers. Racial and class tensions abound and most of the locals are trying to improve their disaffected lives. These include Fadi, the kindly Lebanese bodega owner who runs a community news sheet while dreaming of catering to rich luxury cruise-line passengers, and Raneem, a homeless graffiti artist, befriended by Fadi.
A murder, some years before, that of corrections officer Marcus James, the father of Cree, is still unsolved. The latest disappearance ignites new interest in the crime and two detectives return to go over old ground and new.
And, just to add another twist, the disappearance also attracts “voices” – the sort of voices a young Red Hook woman, with “the gift”, would rather not hear.
One for the book shelf, to recommend to friends and read again.