The Invisible Ones

Starred review from November 7, 2011
In her mesmerizing sophomore outing, Penney wraps a riddle in a mystery inside an enigma that intrigues from the very first page. As the tale—set in the ’80s—begins, private eye Ray Lovell wakes up in an English hospital with little memory and partial paralysis. While he recovers, other problems present. Lovell Price Investigations is broke and most of its cases involve adultery, about which Ray says: “These sorts of cases... can depress you if you let them.” Then Ray, who is half-Gypsy himself, is offered a job by a fellow Gypsy, Leon Wood, who wants Ray to find his daughter, Rose, who he hasn’t seen or spoken to in seven years, ever since she married Ivo Janko, another Gypsy (or traveler, as the British often call them). Why Leon wants to find Rose after so much time begins the mystery. He tells Ray it’s because her mother has died and she should know, but Leon suspects foul play even though Rose’s husband claims she ran off with a “gorjio” right after having a child, but Leon suspects foul play. Given his Gypsy heritage, Ray is able to insert himself into the itinerant lifestyle of that world—exactly the reason why Leon has hired him. But even with his knowledge of the traveling life, Ray is surprised by the stonewalling and half-truths he encounters while trying to learn the Janko family’s secrets. The narrative slides seamlessly between Ray’s point of view and that of J.J., Ivo’s cousin’s son, giving the reader a balanced perspective—and serving up two truly shocking twists at the story’s end. Fast-paced, with characters who will live in full color inside the reader’s head, Penney delivers an impressive follow-up to her debut bestseller, The Tenderness of Wolves.

December 1, 2011
Perhaps one of the first novels involving a half-Gypsy as a detective. Penney uses the missing-person plot rather than the whodunit to provide a thread for her narrative. One day Romany Leon Wood shows up at Ray Lovell's failing detective agency to hire him to find his missing daughter, Rose. Lovell has some immediate concerns about the case, primarily because Rose has been missing for seven years. Leon has a Gypsy's reluctance to go to the police about the case but trusts Lovell because he's half Romany—his father was born in a field in Kent while his mother was gorjio, or non-Romany. The novel starts with Lovell in a hospital, partially paralyzed and vaguely remembering a recent sexual encounter, though he's unsure whether this was memory or hallucination. As he gets well, he takes us back to his initial steps in tracing Rose's disappearance. Besides Lovell, Penney uses JJ Janko, a Romany teenager, as her other narrator. JJ is concerned about Ivo, his uncle, but especially about Ivo's son Christo, who's suffering from a rare and seemingly incurable disease, one that Ivo himself had had as a child and "miraculously" recovered from. (Ivo had made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, where they also take Christo in a desperate attempt to cure him.) Fortunately, Lovell has a pediatrician friend who's able to give insight into the nature of Christo's illness and how it's genetically transmitted from generation to generation...and it turns out that it's impossible for Ivo to be Christo's father. Penney gives her plot plenty of twists and saves the best for the end, with a truly unforeseen and unpredictable conclusion.

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August 1, 2011

Among my absolutely favorite novels (let alone debuts) of the last few years is Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves, an edge-of-civilization epic as magisterial, tender, and bristling as they come. (The Costa folks agreed, giving it the Book of the Year award in 2007.) So I'm already hitting up the publisher for this book. Admirably, Penney does something different here, departing from the 19th-century Canadian setting of Wolves for 1980s rural England, as small-potatoes private investigator Ray Lovell wrestles with a troublesome case. He's been asked to find Rose Janko, daughter-in-law in a Gypsy family and missing for seven years. But the Jankos stonewall him fiercely--are they resigned or hiding something?--and he ends up in hospital. Get this one; I promise that it will be good.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
Private investigator Ray Lovell wakes up in the hospital after an accident, and he slowly remembers the events that brought him there. Lovell, who is half Romany, is hired by Leon Wood to find his daughter, Rose, whom he hasn't heard from since her arranged marriage to Ivo Janko seven years ago. The story is seamlessly told by Ray in the hospital, Ray before his accident, and teen JJ Janko. The Janko family insists Rose ran away with a gorjio (non-Romany) after her son was born afflicted with the family illness, but Ray begins to doubt that Rose is still alive. If she is dead, which of the extended Janko family killed her? Ray solves the crime while he slowly recovers, comes to terms with the break-up of his marriage, and begins a new relationship with a member of the Janko family. The interesting life of gypsies in 1980s England frames a story with plot twists and interesting characters, but the resolution is rather a letdown.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)