As She Left It

April 22, 2013
British author McPherson takes a break from her Danny Gilver cozy series (After the Armistice Ball, etc.) with this dark, absorbing, contemporary stand-alone. After her alcoholic mother’s death, 25-year-old Opal Jones returns to gritty Mote Street in Leeds, England, where she grew up. There she encounters many of the same people she knew at age 12 when she left home. When Opal learns that three-year-old Craig Southgate, whom she used to babysit, disappeared shortly after Opal’s departure from Leeds, she resolves to find out what happened to him. Opal discovers that everyone in the old neighborhood has a secret—even elderly Mr. Gordon, the New Orleans jazz musician known as Fishbo, who taught her to play trumpet. As her own forgotten memories begin to surface in her search for Craig, Opal must summon the courage to face some hard truths about her own past. Agent: Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Literary Agency.

Starred review from May 1, 2013
A mystery a young woman finds in her childhood home leads her to revelations about her clouded past. Opal Jones left home at 12 to escape her alcoholic mother's promiscuous lifestyle. Following her mum's death, she returns to Leeds and moves into the family home. The neighbors are much as she remembers, but all is oddly changed by the disappearance of Dennis and Margaret's grandson Craig, whose mother, Karen, no longer speaks to them. The police looked closely at everyone on Mote Street--including Opal's mum, whose boyfriend at the time was Karen's husband--but Craig was never found. Across the street from Opal live nosy Mrs. Pickess, obsessed with cleanliness; Opal's beloved old music teacher Fishbo Gordon and his fellow band member Pep Kendal; and the Joshis family, who run a taxi service. They all seem to be hiding secrets. Opal often hears her next-door neighbor, the only new arrival on Mote Street, sobbing through their adjoining wall. After she finds an odd message written inside an article of furniture, Opal resolves to track down related messages. Her quest takes her to the wealthy Fossett family, whose senile daughter, Norah, is the only occupant of a huge house. As Opal tries to discover what happened to Craig and searches Norah's house for more clues, repressed memories of her own past float up, threatening her and all her old neighbors. The creator of Dandy Gilver (Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder, 2012, etc.) has produced a stand-alone that is worlds apart, a fascinating, mysterious ramble you can't put down.

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May 15, 2013
After 13 years away, Opal Jones returns to her alcoholic mother's house on Mote Street in Leeds, England, which she left at the age of 12, and is welcomed by neighbors even after missing her mum's funeral. Then, sensing an air of secrecy, she learns of the tragic disappearance 10 years earlier of the 5-year-old grandson of a neighbor couple, and she begins to wonder why another neighbor provided the financial means for Opal's return. Soon the resourceful Opal undertakes three missions: finding the missing child; locating the family of her beloved Fishbo, the trumpet player of the Mote Street Boys combo, who taught her to play the instrument; and solving the puzzle of papers found in the posts of the secondhand bed she just bought. Undeterred even by a threatening note and a break-in, Opal finds that little is what it seems as her own painful and hidden memories come to light. With an appealingly quirky cast of characters and a nicely paced narrative, this is a captivating stand-alone from the author of the Dandy Gilver mystery series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)