9780345449719: Blues in the Night
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0345449711 ISBN 13: 9780345449719
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

A hit-and-run accident that leaves a young woman unconscious and dying in the hospital draws true-crime writer Molly Blume into a dangerous search for the truth about the victim as dark and deadly secrets from the past and present begin to be revealed. By theauthor of Shadows of Sin.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rochelle Krich is the author of ten acclaimed novels of suspense, including Shadows of Sin, Dead Air, Blood Money, and Fertile Ground. An Anthony Award winner for her debut novel Where’s Mommy Now? (which was adapted as the TV movie Perfect Alibi), Ms. Krich now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their children.

Visit Rochelle Krich’s Web site at www.rochellekrich.com

Aus dem Klappentext

Sunday, July 13. 1:46 A.M. Near Lookout Mountain and Laurel Canyon. An unidentified woman in her twenties, wearing a nightgown, was the victim of a hit-and-run accident that left her unconscious and seriously injured. There were no witnesses.

So reads the report on the accident off Mulholland Drive in Molly Blume s Crime Sheet column for a weekly Los Angeles tabloid. Just another small L.A. tragedy, soon forgotten.

But the image of the young woman in her nightgown stumbling along a dark, winding road is one Molly, a freelance true-crime writer, cannot shake. In fact, it draws her to a bedside in intensive care, where the victim whispers to her three names: Robbie, Max, and Nina. It s not a smoking gun, but is sufficient to reinforce Molly s gut instinct that there are sinister circumstances behind the assault on Lenore Saunders.

With fearless conviction, Molly asks questions that nobody including Lenore s mom, her ex-husband, her shrink, or even Molly s L.A.P.D. buddy, Detective Connors wants to answer. Nevertheless, the astute Molly discovers Lenore lived a fractured life, so different from Molly s own secure and loving Orthodox Jewish background. And as a chilling picture of the unfortunate woman begins to take shape, the menace of murders past and present stirs and quickens.

In her first Molly Blume novel, award-winning novelist Rochelle Krich tells a story in the tradition of the great L.A. mysteries of the past and introduces an investigator who is pure gold. Twentysomething divorcee Molly Blume, with her deep faith, short skirts, and nose for the truth, is a heroine to cherish.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

It was the nightgown that hooked me:

Sunday, July 13. 1:46 a.m. Near Lookout Mountain and Laurel Canyon. An unidentified woman in her mid- to late-twenties, wearing a nightgown, was the victim of a hit-and-run accident that left her unconscious and seriously injured. There were no witnesses.

That’s how my copy would read in next Tuesday’s edition of the Crime Sheet. We’re not talking Chandler or Hammett—just the facts, ma’am. There would be no speculation about the nightgown mentioned in the police report, or about the woman wearing it. Had she been in distress? I wondered. Desperate, maybe, her hair flying behind her like a banner as she dashed across the serpentine road, oblivious of the oncoming car? Had she been running for help, or away from something or someone? Had she been looking behind her in that final moment before the car slammed into her, several tons of metal crushing muscle and delicate bone, or paralyzed by the headlights, feral eyes gleaming menace in the dark, moonless night?

My editor, who constantly carps about lack of space, would probably cut the nightgown. People don’t care what she was wearing, Molly, he’d argue. For me, the nightgown was key. And in my opinion, it’s details like this that give the Crime Sheet its quirky flavor.

I’m a freelance reporter and I collect data from the Los Angeles Police Department for a section in the local independent throwaways that people read to find out what crimes are taking place in their neighborhoods and figure out how nervous they should be. I also write books about true crime under the pseu- donym Morgan Blake. I’ve always been inquisitive (“Excellent grades marred by interrupting class with too many questions”), and ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawn to crime stories, true and fictional. So with a journalism degree from UCLA, I set about channeling my curiosity into a career.

As to my love of crime fiction, I inherited that from my maternal grandmother, Bubbie G (the G is for Genendel, a name Bubbie has forbidden any of us to mention although I think it’s cute). Bubbie, who immigrated to Los Angeles from Europe with my late grandfather in 1951, taught herself English and cut her teeth on Erle Stanley Gardner. Soon she was devouring four or five mysteries a week—cozies, hardboiled, Agatha Christie to Elmore Leonard—and whenever she babysat us kids, she’d read to us from Dr. Seuss and a few chapters from the latest mystery she’d picked up from the book sale table at the library. Of course, she skipped some of the choice words, something I didn’t discover until I became addicted myself.

None of my siblings (there are seven kids in the Blume mishpacha; I’m number three) share Bubbie G’s love of mystery, which gives Bubbie and me a special bond. The mystery gene skipped over my mom, Celia, who, aside from teaching high school English, has published one romance novel under the pen name of Charlotte D’Anjou, my father’s favorite pear. (Bartlett came in second.)

I suppose it’s funny that we both use pseudonyms, though our motives are different, and there’s nothing funny about mine. My mom does it because it fits her romantic sensibilities, and I suspect she’s not ready to test the reactions of her students and principal. I do it to protect myself from the criminals I write about, people for whom I have a healthy fear and from whom I’d like to keep my identity and address secret.

Because mystery fiction is different from true crime. There are experiences Bubbie won’t talk about, ever. There are events I choose not to remember that worm their way into my consciousness despite my efforts to keep them out. It’s those events and Bubbie’s unspoken past, not curiosity, that compel me to try to find out the why of the horrible things people do to each other. And there are moments when the sadness of the fractured lives I’m investigating makes me wonder whether my mother doesn’t have the right idea.

Lookout Mountain, the spot where the woman was hit, is about half a mile south of Mulholland, which is halfway between the city and the San Fernando Valley. I added the information to my hollywood computer file and, with a stack of note-filled pages and several photocopies of police reports in front of me (some divisions will give me photocopies, others will allow me to take notes “under scrutiny”), I proceeded to enter the details of other misdemeanors and felonies in the Hollywood area:

Sunday, July 13. 3:37 a.m. 8400 block of Fountain. A man broke into a woman’s home and raped her. Sunday, July 13. 8:08 a.m. 8500 block of Beverly Boulevard. A suspect, angry about his cellular phone service, threatened his service consultant, saying, “I’m going over there to shoot and kill you.” Monday, July 14. 9:58 p.m. 5700 block of San Vicente Boulevard. Sometime during the morning a thief removed money from a woman’s artificial leg.

You get the picture.

I had finished inputting half the police data and was returning to my office with a refilled coffee mug when the phone rang. The Caller ID on my desk phone told me it was my mother, who knows I generally don’t take calls when I’m writing. It’s so easy to destroy the gossamer filaments of creative thought, so hard to spin them. I’m an excellent worrier, and my mind ran through several dire possibilities as I picked up the receiver. “Is everything okay, Mom?”

“Everything’s fine,” she said, panting. “I hate to interrupt you, Molly, but Edie wanted me to call right away.” For my sister Edie, everything has “right away” significance. “You’re not interrupting, Mom. Why are you so out of breath?”

“Edie let us have a five-minute break from class,” she said, referring to the weekly Israeli dance lessons my sister gives. “She wants to set you up with someone. He’s very special. Brilliant, funny, sensitive, handsome.” One of Bubbie G’s favorite jokes is about a shadchan (matchmaker) who raves to a young man’s parents about a girl who has everything: beauty, intelligence, a sterling character, wealth.

What doesn’t she have? ask the skeptical parents. A long pause before the shadchan replies: Teeth. It’s even better in Yiddish.

“What’s the hitch?” I asked now, sandwiching the cordless phone receiver between my head and shoulder as I stirred artificial sweetener into my coffee.

“There’s no hitch. He’s thirty, just a year older than you are. Never married.”

“What does he do?”

My mother hesitated. Teeth, I thought, and then I heard her say, “He’s a rabbi.”

I laughed out loud. “I don’t date rabbis. I don’t even like most of them.” An exaggeration, but the idea was too ridiculous. “What was Edie thinking?”

“She says he’s a real catch, Molly. She wants to set this up quickly, before someone else grabs him.”

“Let them grab.” Ever since my divorce two years ago, my sister Edie has made it her mission to find my true bashert—my destined love. It’s probably easier to find a Kate Spade bag on a clearance table.

“One date can’t hurt. Edie says you know him, by the way.”

“Edie probably booked the Century Plaza for the wedding and ordered the flowers for the chuppa.” The wedding canopy. “What’s his name?” I took a long sip.

“Zachary Abrams. He’s—”

I coughed violently, spraying mocha...

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Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345449711
ISBN 13 
9780345449719
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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