Part of the reason I first noticed you was because you were next to him. You were in the minority that day, you were in our neighborhood and almost everyone else there would have picked me. Why do humans do it the other way? It doesn’t make sense. In the animal kingdom, the male performs for the woman, woos her with his beautiful feathers or flowing mane, is always trying to out-strut the other men. Who won? My hunch is that you gave yourself the crown because you saw a Negro woman, a poor one at that. You scanned the crowd of people on the sidewalk and your eyes caught mine, if only for a moment, then dropped away. I could tell at a glance you’ve never doubted you’re good-looking and you still had the habit of checking a room to make sure you were the best-looking. Lock eyes, then look one another up and down. I saw you and you noticed me because you caught me looking at you, seeing you.
Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people-including Ferdie, the man who shares her bed, a police officer who is risking far more than Maddie can understand. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Maddie’s investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life-a jewelry store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. Cleo scolds the ambitious Maddie: You're interested in my death, not my life. Instead, her mysterious death receives only cursory mention in the daily newspapers, and no one cares when Maddie starts poking around in a young Black woman's life-except for Cleo's ghost, who is determined to keep her secrets and her dignity. If Cleo were white, every reporter in Baltimore would be clamoring to tell her story.
Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl-assistance that leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Sta r. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: Cleo Sherwood, a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake. Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. This year, she’s bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know-everyone, that is, except Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz. The revered New York Times bestselling author returns with a novel set in 1960s Baltimore that combines modern psychological insights with elements of classic noir, about a middle-aged housewife turned aspiring reporter who pursues the murder of a forgotten young woman.
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