Brimming with questions, 12 year old Emma Graham has her own perspectives and insights on adult behaviours and so she can usually find a way to charm, work around, or wheedle out juicy tidbits of information from the local folks living in the small communities of Spirit Lake, La Porte and Lake Noir near where she lived in the Hotel Paradise that her mother runs.

After having been the victim of a near murder attempt, Emma is thrilled with being a cub reporter for the Conservative, a local paper that hired her to write her story as well as other stories that relate to it. A number of tragedies had struck the close knit communities and Emma wants to get to the bottom of them and find out more about a small baby that had been kidnapped over 20 years ago that was never found and no ransom collected. Like a scab that begs to be picked, the sadness of the Slade baby's plight bothers Emma and she just cannot leave it alone or stop asking questions and thinking about it.

Unfortunately, her mother's need to have her work as a waitress in the hotel and helping out with the family business cuts into her sleuthing time, so she zips about by taxi, train and walking as best she can to get others to reminisce about what happened in the past or what is the latest gossip. As she ferrets out small gems of truth (and the occasional cupcake), Emma struggles to make sense of how they connect and likens her feelings about it to her favourite magazine covers that feature fadeaway pictures where only small contracting colours briefly differentiate the character's form from totally being blended into the background colour. But, when new people come to town, will Emma's unrelenting need to find out more and the discoveries she makes put her in even more danger?

This is the fourth book featuring the intrepid and inquisitive twelve year old Emma Graham by well-known mystery writer, Martha Grimes. While it is possible to read this book on its own, it really is best if read as a series as it is a sequel to Belle Ruin (2005), the third book with characters and events also intertwining from the first book, Hotel Paradise and Cold Flat Junction, the second book. As a result, the relationships, tensions and fullness of some of the minor characters are not as well developed as are the key characters in this book. Grimes's talent is her ability to give an authentic voice to her characters and she is quite adept at getting the right tone for the precocious Emma with her strong analytic sense while still retaining her pre-teen vagaries; being hazy on the details, but quickly picking up on the content of subjects adults don't want her to hear and being kind to those she likes while playing mean tricks on those she doesn't.

While the plot is ambiguous at times with several mysteries going on, the bantering and competitive interactions between Emma and her family and friends, especially with Sherriff De Gheyn and her Great-Aunt Aurora, really keep the story line moving. Grimes' existing and new fans will thrill as the shocking new discoveries made by Emma in FADEAWAY GIRL.