This Glittering World

October 11, 2010
A lackluster guy finds purpose in the pursuit of justice in Greenwood's slack latest (after The Hungry Season). When Ben Bailey, an adjunct history professor and part-time bartender mildly dissatisfied with his life and engagement to occasionally shrewish Sara, finds the badly beaten body of a young Native American on his lawn, he's driven to find out what happened. His quest takes on a new dimension once the young man dies and his death goes all but unnoticed. Ben soon meets the victim's sister, Shadi, and falls for her while they investigate her brother's murder, but by the time he tries to call off his engagement, Sara is pregnant and Ben is torn between the life that's being planned for him and the more adventurous one that he thinks he wants. Greenwood's Flagstaff, Ariz., is a convincing one, more so than the forced premise of Ben's sorrow binding him to Shadi, and while the plot manages a few surprises, Ben's too passive for a man on a mission.

Starred review from October 15, 2010

"So hope slowly turned into desperation and desperation into sad resignation." This line from Greenwood's (Two Rivers; The Hungry Season) disturbing suspense novel paints an accurate picture of her characters' troubled lives. Ben, an adjunct history professor and part-time bartender, and his nurse fiancee, Sara, have been living a somewhat peaceful existence in Flagstaff, AZ, until an early snow falls on Halloween night and the couple discover a badly beaten Native American young man on their doorstep. Unable to forget Ricky's death, Ben forges a secret bond with Ricky's grieving sister, Shadi. Haunted by a tragedy from his own childhood, Ben becomes increasingly aware of the deep fissures in his supposedly settled life. VERDICT Stark, taut, and superbly written, this dark tale brims with glimpses of the Southwest and scenes of violence, gruesome but not gratuitous. This haunting look at a fractured family is certain to please readers of literary suspense.--Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA

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