CRIME FICTION
It takes a city
Aoife Clifford
Ultimo Press, $34.99
The regional town of Welcome would like to be a city, as it has a cathedral. Undermining this grand ambition is the fact that, as a medium-sized city, it is also small enough to have fostered a close-knit community in which everyone knows each other's business. This will come in handy as, according to Janet Ross, Welcome's senior investigator, “it takes a town to solve a murder.” And so it does.
Aoife Clifford ticks off some crime subgenres in her latest novel, It Takes a Town.
This is a smart crime novel that manages to tick a lot of subgenre boxes without ever losing sight of the imperative to keep the story moving. In the wry observations of Welcome and its inhabitants, for example, Aoife Clifford initially leans towards the welcoming. In the best Midsomer tradition, it all kicks off with a gala at the dilapidated Palais Theater starring former Welcome child star Vanessa Walton, who made her entrance on the world stage by “tap dancing through a giant cookie sprinkling sugar on the “air”.
Career-hardened, middle-aged Vanessa returns to Welcome to raise money for her cousin's cancer cause. And then Vanessa is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, apparently tripped during a power outage after consuming half a bottle of champagne.
So there is an element of police procedural as well. We meet crafty Sergeant Carole Duffy flying in a helicopter to take up her new post and deal with the aftermath of a flood, and now a body. Also on the flight is aspiring politician and local property developer Barton Langridge, who flew back to town the night before for the sole purpose of arriving with the police as a publicity stunt for the cameras. Carole is not impressed.
Clifford's novel leans toward the cozy.
There are also shades of domestic noir involving Professor Frankie Birnam and her family. Frankie was once Veronica's best friend and is even better with Mer (short for Meredith). La Mer is ending her boring existence at the local supermarket, making quiches and doing her best to antagonize the manager while secretly drinking. Mer is fun.
Frankie, meanwhile, is still married to her high school sweetheart, Joe, with whom she has two boys, the older of whom is friends with Jaz and Brianna. The latter are teenage climate activists at Frankie's school and clearly have some idea. In fact, everyone in this fictional community is somehow involved in Vanessa's death. As Frankie observes while watching Vanessa perform on stage at the fundraising gala, “she was a star, a giant supernova, and everyone in the room was spinning in her orbit,” even after her death , apparently.
It takes a city is enlivened with good observations. Janet, Welcome's would-be Miss Marple, is described as having the look of “a curious owl”, which, given her nocturnal habits, is fitting. Billy, the aging constable, is described in police terms as having “put the pool cue back in the rack.” But people are full of surprises and should never be taken for granted.
