Invisible Eden

May 19, 2003
In January 2002, 46-year-old fashion writer Crista Worthington was found stabbed to death on the floor of her cottage in Truro, Mass. Her curly-haired toddler, Ava, was nestled by her side. The murder traumatized Worthington's idyllic Cape Cod community and captured the attention of the national media. Here, Truro resident Flook (My Sister Life: The Story of My Sister's Disappearance) attempts to make literary sense of the tragic, downward spiral of Worthington. An attractive former Vassar girl and scion of a prominent local family, she left a glamorous career in New York (she also worked for WWD
in Paris) to have an affair with a ruggedly handsome but very married fisherman and have his child. Flook, despite her lively writing, cannot solve the crime. "No one can understand the arc of the victim's life until her killer is ID'ed," writes Flook herself. Flook turns to terse Michael O'Keefe, the assistant district attorney responsible for the Worthington case, for insight and what can only be called local macho resonance. But his noncommittal investigative shop talk can't take the place of the truth. Most disappointing, the victim herself emerges as neither sympathetic nor compelling, a spoiled little rich girl who seems to care little for anyone except her daughter and herself. "The more we look at her, the uglier she gets," O'Keefe says of Worthington. Although Flook fleshes out various suspects, including Tony Jackett, the father of Worthington's child, and Tim Arnold, the spurned-lover-turned-friend who found Worthington's body. Flook seems to favor Arnold as the murderer, but who knows? This work will leave most readers with a sense of sadness and not much else.

Starred review from June 1, 2003
When the press got word of noted fashion writer Christa Worthington's death last year, few outside the Cape Cod hamlet of Truro, MA knew of the tangled web of lovers, family strain, and personal struggles she had left behind. Although she was found stabbed on the floor of her family home, it was Worthington's pedigree and publishing success as well as the image of her baby daughter found clinging to her side that grabbed people's attention. A large variety of possible suspects (all with viable motives) has kept police tied to the still-pending investigation ever since. Yet, for Flook's story all of this is just background, her own motivation is a profound sympathy for Worthington herself. Trying to discover what led this talented and fast-paced career woman to move back home and have a baby, the Pushcart Prize-winner soon found herself immersed in the life of the victim. Interviewing suspects and the DA, Christa's friends from high-profile publications WWD and W and childhood companions from Truro, Flook pieces together the life of this now tragic figure with both impartiality and compassion. This is true crime with heart; a must read summer title for all libraries. [For an interview with Flook, see p.145.]-Rachel Collins, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2003
When Christa Worthington, an accomplished fashion writer and single mother, was found murdered in a remote Cape Cod town, national media became fascinated with the life and tragic end of a woman who appeared to have everything. Flook, a newer resident to the same small town, follows the investigation into the still unsolved murder of a woman who drifted from a life of high fashion and old WASP money to chasing a local fisherman heartthrob, the father of her child, in the hopes that he would divorce his wife. Drawing on interviews with family, friends, and former lovers, as well as investigators and murder suspects, Flook brings Worthington to life, detailing her vibrancy, character flaws, and obsessions. The Vassar graduate, disappointed with her career, found herself in her 40s, back home in Cape Cod, nursing a dying mother, expecting a child, and reviving a hatred for her philandering father, who had taken up with a much younger woman who was addicted to heroin. Flook also offers a searing look at the seaside town peopled with the rich, famous, and quirky, as well as the blue-collar, obscure, and edgy, in this intimate look at the allure of secrets, sex, and murder.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)