On her 55th birthday, physicist Gloria Lamerino makes a U-turn: she cleans out her Berkeley, California condo and her physics lab, signs for a retirement bonus, and flies east to her hometown of Revere, just outside Boston. Back in the city she left thirty years ago, Gloria moves into an apartment above her friends’ funeral home and drives their hand-me-down Cadillacs. When she signs on with the local police as a consultant in science-related crimes, she thinks the most exciting thing about the job will be testifying as an expert witness. But Gloria finds a challenge she doesn’t expect: the murder of Eric Bensen, a physicist she knew in California. Gloria uncovers fraudulent scientific data, solves Eric’s murder, and engages in her first physical combat, all in the same week. She also has her first date in decades.
Blurb from the 2012 edition
Physicist Gloria Lamerino returns after many years to her hometown of Revere in Massachusetts, where she rents an apartment above a funeral parlour from an old friend.
Subsequently an old colleague, leading a research project on creating stable metallic hydrogen, is murdered in his lab, having told his team that he is going to go public over some flawed data; a revelation that would compromise future funding for the lab.
As the police need help in understanding what the data involved actually is and what it means, Gloria is called in as a consultant to translate the physics involved and help out with questioning the suspects, although her involvement with the case, and the handsome police sergeant, becomes more complicated.
This is an enjoyable and indeed educational piece, since we not only learn in an entertaining fashion, what metallic hydrogen is and why it is important, but are taught some valuable lessons about the history of women in Science and the problems they face today being still a minority in a male-dominated field.
Added to that, the author paints a wonderful picture of this Massachusetts coastal town, with its social mix of Italians, Jewish and Irish. There’s a lot of quirky eccentric touches to this that speaks of personal experience of a place and adds that sense of verisimilitude.
There’s a marvellous set of characters, and a deeper use of the many and varied relationships we have with each other. The romantic subplot is handled sparsely and realistically and dovetails nicely in. This is contrasted by one of Gloria’s longtime admirers who is still in love with her after thirty years but clearly stands no chance.
The plot is nothing out of the ordinary, employing some standard devices, but the quality of writing and characterisation more than make up for that.
Very enjoyable indeed.
Bodies In The Library 