Until She Comes Home

April 15, 2013
Roy follows her Edgar-winning debut, Bent Road, with a moody, tension-filled tale of intertwined crimes set in late 1950s Detroit. The placid lives of Malina Herze, Julia Wagner, Grace Richardson, and the other women of Alder Avenue are upended, first by the murder of a “colored” woman near the factory where their husbands work, then by the disappearance of Elizabeth Symanski, a mentally challenged young adult who lives with her widowed father. While Malina, Julia, Grace, and the others discuss these disturbing events in their living rooms and kitchens, their menfolk search for Elizabeth. Julia’s nieces, Izzy and Arie, are told to remain indoors, but, in their boredom, the girls begin to explore the neighborhood and naturally find trouble. Under these pressures, problems old and new rise to the surface and lives are irrevocably changed. This well-written period piece may appeal more to readers of women’s fiction than mystery fans. Agent: Jenny Bent, the Bent Agency.

May 15, 2013
What if what you think you know, you don't really know? In the late 1950s, Detroit's Alder Avenue neighborhood is on edge. The heat is oppressive. Factories are closing. Blacks are moving in. The police, who neglect the murder of a black prostitute whose head was bashed in with something like a hammer, take up the case of Elizabeth Symanski, a mentally challenged young woman of 22--her mother dead, her father sliding into dementia--who left pregnant Grace Richardson's house, was watched by Julia Wagner as she walked down the street, opened the gate to her own home and then somehow wandered off. The local women bake casseroles and set them out on impeccably ironed linen cloths for the men who leave their factory jobs to search the grid. But not everyone believes Elizabeth is just lost. Wary eyes are cast at the black residents, wondering if they're out to avenge one of their own. Battered wife Malina Herze thinks her husband, a factory supervisor who comes home every night with the stench of his mistress on him, may have his eye on the twins visiting Julia Wagner. Julia, whose husband hasn't touched her since their colic-plagued daughter died last year, wonders if he murdered the infant to stop the incessant crying--and if he did, what else he might do. Her best friend, Grace, about to deliver her first child, refuses to admit that she was attacked by a band of blacks because she thinks her husband couldn't deal with it, and she believes that they're probably responsible for Elizabeth's disappearance. The women's anguish leads to an assassination by car, a suicide and an unexpected revelation of what actually happened to Elizabeth. A beautifully written, at times lyrical, study of a disintegrating community. Roy, author of the Edgar Award-winning mystery Bent Road (2011), tackles similar themes here with equally successful results.

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April 15, 2013

Roy's second psychological crime novel (after the Edgar Award-winning Bent Road) dissects the lives and interactions of the families who reside on Alder Avenue, Detroit, in the 1950s. When a black woman is found dead near the local factory, her murder causes varying degrees of anxiety among the novel's women. Then young, disabled Elizabeth, from their own neighborhood, goes missing and the community mounts a massive search to bring her home. The tale that begins to evolve, through alternating perspectives, paints a dark and desolate picture of the residents of Alder Avenue. VERDICT Roy skillfully delves into each character's inner state to uncover why the death and disappearance, respectively, of the two women affect each of them so differently. Roy's troubling novel leaves readers guessing until the end. It will appeal strongly to those fascinated by the psychological aspects of violent crimes and the motivations of those who commit them. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/12.]--Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2013
People get along on Alder Avenue, a peaceful Detroit community of working-class folks whose lives have centered on their church, their place in the social hierarchy, and their families. Husbands work hard; wives run the home; children are expected to be well behaved. But things are changing. It's 1958, and some of the people on Alder are growing restive. Their all-white neighborhood is changing; factories are closing, and some men from the block are known to visit a nearby whorehouse. Then a black woman is murdered in an adjacent neighborhood, and Elizabeth, a childlike white woman who lives with her elderly immigrant father, disappears. Neighbors rally to find Elizabeth; men organize search parties; women organize meals. Everyone gossips, and some assign blame as they await Elizabeth's return. Among the concerned neighbors are three very different women for whom Elizabeth's disappearance becomes a catalyst for personal change: Malina, obsessive, unstable queen of the social circuit; pregnant Grace, compliant and the embodiment of her name; and Julia, Grace's friend and opposite, whose wry humor masks doubt and terrible sadness. Roy makes every detail count as she builds her characters and gently but inexorably leads them to reexamine their own lives. What seems to begin in the glowing warmth of a homey kitchen transforms into a probing emotional drama that speaks powerfully to women about family, prejudice, power (one of the women is raped), and secrets.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)