Fadeaway Girl

December 20, 2010
A 20-year-old kidnapping with faint echoes of the Lindbergh case drives Grimes's convoluted fourth crime novel featuring Emma Graham, a direct sequel to 2005's Belle Ruin. Emma, a 12-year-old cub reporter who also helps out at the Hotel Paradise in La Porte, Md., where her mother's the cook, thinks that the accounts don't add up about the unsolved disappearance of Baby Fay Slade from the nearby Belle Rouen hotel. Emma's doubts center on the possible role of Fay's father, the shady Morris Slade; Morris's spoiled wife; his rich father-in-law; and his former neighbors. The abrupt reappearance of Morris Slade and the arrival of a smug new hotel employee raise further questions and end in sudden death. Grimes's strength is in her appealing characters, from the inquisitive Emma and her dipsomaniac great-aunt, Aurora, to the pretentious 16-year-old Ree-Jane Davidow and philosophical auto mechanic Dwayne, but gaps in logic, lack of red herrings, and frequent references to earlier entries in the series may put off some readers, especially those unfamiliar with the previous books. 4-city author tour.

Twelve-year-old Emma Graham investigates the kidnapping of Baby Fay 20 years earlier. The sharp tones of Kim Guest's voice aptly imitate the whiny main character as she drones on about life in La Porte, Maryland. Guest favors high tones and Southern accents for the female characters and softer, deeper intonations for the male characters in Grimes's story. In between working at Hotel Paradise, run by her mother, Emma traipses around town poking her nose into everyone's business. If the listener has trouble following the plot, take heart--this is the sequel to BELLE RUIN, and the fourth in a series. Guest connects emotionally with the story, slipping into Emma's persona. But the story is difficult to follow and tends to involve characters only Emma cares about. M.B.K. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine