Carol Lea Benjamin - Without a Word (2005)
Reviewed by Yvette Banek
This is the eighth, and possibly, the best book in Carol Lea Benjamin’s gritty New York noir series featuring private eye Rachel Alexander and her exemplary pit bull, Dashiell. Benjamin is not only a terrific mystery writer, but also a well known dog trainer and author of several ‘how to’ dog behavioral books. Due to Benjamin’s unique expertise, Dashiell leaps off the page as a well rounded character, though one who always remains in place as a dog. No anthropomorphism here.
In Without a Word, author Benjamin proves her natural gift for brilliant characterization burns as brightly as ever, though this time around she may have outdone herself. On their daily walk in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in which they live, Rachel and Dashiell encounter a man whose sad problems, at first glance, seem almost insurmountable:
Leon Spector had dead written all over him, not the kind where they put you in a box, say a few words and toss the earth back over you, not the ashes-to-ashes kind of dead, but the kind that lets the world know that whatever the battle was, you lost, the kind that says that sometime, a long time ago, you were beaten into the ground by circumstances beyond your control. I didn’t know what those circumstances were in Leon’s case, but on a particularly sunny afternoon at the Washington Square Park dog run the month I turned forty and my pit bull Dashiell, turned five, Leon apparently planned to tell me.
After this wonderful opening, I couldn’t help but read the book straight through at a clip on one of the rainiest New Jersey nights ever. Leon Spector wants Rachel to do the impossible: find his missing wife Sally, gone five years as the book opens, but also save his troubled twelve year old daughter Madison from being charged with the murder of her doctor.
The girl’s mother disappeared one night while out with the family dog and no sign of her, or the dog, was ever discovered. Since then, Madison has simply stopped speaking. Plagued by a medical condition, facial tics, that cause her to be further ostracized by her peers, she was being treated with Botox injections which apparently had only served to make matters worse. Ironically, the doctor treating her has been found dead from a Botox injection straight to the heart. Madison was the last patient scheduled for an office visit on the afternoon in question. Hence, the interest of the police in this odd little girl with the pet turtle, who they claim is prone to fits of rage -- the girl, not the turtle -- something her blighted father reluctantly admits is true.
When little by little, the murdered doctor is discovered to have secrets of his own, and police interest widens, Rachel intensifies her search for Sally, the missing wife. What she discovers will not only surprise you, but may cause you to question the essential nature of love and motherhood and even, the very basic nature of being human.
New York City can be a town full of secrets and dark imaginings. It is the painful secret heaped upon secret woven into the heart and soul of this strange little family that intrigues and mystifies and ultimately makes us, along with Rachel, want to solve this heartbreaking puzzle.
Without a Word is newly available in paperback so it is nice and handy for the beach or poolside. Though this is a series, luckily, it doesn’t necessarily have to be read in any specific order -- it just has to be read.
Posted by Yvette Banek in Book Reviews | Permalink
