Mother Nature

Andrews creates a complex character investigating a murder while grappling with grief and depression, who speaks frankly of her own confused states of mind, encounters with the ghost of the woman whose murder she is investigating, passing doubts about her own mental stability, of an emotional landscape like a minefield. Yet this protagonist, this persevering, courageous woman, whose intelligence and scientific training gleam like a diamond as she ransacks the environmentalist's computer files for information, makes lists of leads, pulling together a successful investigation despite being repeatedly lied to by people in the community she questions, manipulated and emotionally abused by the senator who hired her, and nearly being strangled to death as she gets closer to the truth, confronts her own haunted past through the trauma of the investigation. She writes tellingly of not having enough money to eat, and of the gnawing loneliness and grief worse than hunger that eats at her. I liked the reality of this novel, the fiction that is truer than facts, of the ways a person matures and develops, opens her heart and cønnects with other people, feels compassion for her tormentors, and muddles through the obfuscations, and perseveres until she solves the murder and justice prevails. Now that's my kind of mystery! I also enjoyed the descriptions of Sonoma County, of the land, the development, the political climate, the culture clash between ranchers and new people coming in with money, of the greed and avarice of developers and the reasons to keep wetlands intact, of the complexities of toxic cleanups and who pays for them, the calluousness of government bureaucrats, and of the consequences of generations of men controlling and exploiting women. I've had several experiences in Sonoma County myself, those crazy ditches, especially when driving in heavy fog. The land itself is so beautiful that the tacky buildings and commercial sprawl around Santa Rosa seem even worse than in other places. Andrews writes from intimate knowledge of the terrain she set her story in. I love the perspective she gives of an outsider coming in, a Montana rancher yet, encountering California mysticism with the skepticism of a scientist, yet opening up to a community of women gathered in a drumming circle, experiencing a shamanic vision, even if what she experienced sent her screaming out of the circle. The annual spaghetti dinner at the fire station and Em's observations about the health of the community measured by the number of children, the conversations overheard, the morale of the volunteer firefighters and such, that was priceless. The story thread about the friendship rings makes this truly a story about women and the tender, often fierce relationships between women. The flood which leads to the final denoument, even though foreshadowed by various geologist's observations when Em studies maps of the area, still came on abruptly with little transitio

This is the first book I've read by Sarah Andrews, and I'll look for more. She does a great job of creating believable, complex characters, and the plot kept me engaged.