Belle Ruin
by Martha Grimes
NAL, HK$109
In Belle Ruin, another 12-year-old girl, Emma, drives the plot, although this protagonist is caught up with other people's misfortunes rather than her own. She, too, is wise beyond her years and may prompt the reader to wonder why Martha Grimes bothered creating such a young character when her age isn't a singularly important factor. Having made a name for herself in previous volumes as a born sleuth, Emma becomes a cub reporter who enjoys using her newspaper credentials to persuade people to talk. When she's not playing journalist, she is waiting tables for the elderly at her mother's mouldering hotel. Or trying to get to the bottom of a 40-year-old crime that took place in the once magnificent Belle Rouen, now better known as the Belle Ruin since fire reduced it to a shell. Once Emma starts looking into the near-forgotten case of an unsolved child kidnapping that preceded the blaze, sepia-tinged secrets start surfacing. Mid-20th century America is skilfully drawn by Grimes. Her characters are also appealingly contoured.
