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.
For waitress and cub reporter Emma Graham, tragedy defines
where she lives. Spirit Lake, La Porte, and Lake Noir have
been held in thrall by intertwined crimes: the murders of
Mary-Evelyn Devereau, Rose Queen, and Fern Queen; the
supposed kidnapping of a four-month-old baby from the Belle
Ruin hotel twenty years previously; and, most recently, the
attack on Emma. And with the arrival of an unexpected
visitor and a drifter, it looks like the bad times have only
begun...
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