Lady Jail

November 1, 2020
Farrow's brutal take on the locked-room mystery presents a murder committed inside a secure group ward in the Joliette Institution for Women near Montreal in 1994. Lady Jail doesn't confine its residents in separate cells but parcels them out in group quarters, like the one in which eight women doing time together suddenly find their number abruptly reduced to seven. Someone has strangled Florence, who's locked up for throwing acid in a rival's face, in the group bathroom using a length of wire that's been smuggled in. The killer is clearly one of the other prisoners--senior inmate Doi, who attacked her daughter with a hatchet; Malka, the next oldest, who poisoned her husband; Temple, who smuggles guns for the mob; Rozlynn, who celebrated her 18th birthday by killing her father; Courtney, who stabbed her best friend to death when she caught her flirting; her inseparable pal, Jodi, who shot a man during her boyfriend's convenience-store robbery; and newcomer Abigail, an embezzler who's still hiding the millions she stole--unless it's really correctional officer Isaure Dabrezil, who's working at Lady Jail during her yearlong suspension from the S�ret� du Qu�bec. The job of figuring out whodunit is given to DS �mile Cinq-Mars, of the Montreal Police Service fraud squad, because he arrested Abi and because Dabrezil's presence would render any SQ investigation problematic. Farrow keeps the story's development as intense as the claustrophobic setting until he's ready to unleash a bravura, hyperextended denouement. A wonderful corrective for your pandemic-induced cabin fever. Yes, things could be much, much worse.

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December 14, 2020
Farrow’s enjoyable ninth Émile Cinq-Mars novel (after 2020’s Roar Back) takes the Montreal detective-sergeant to Quebec’s Joliette Institution for Women (aka Lady Jail), where the inmates live in communal groups, to investigate the garroting murder of Florence, the troublemaker in a group of eight women. Newly arrived prisoner Abigail Lauzon, convicted in an investigation led by Cinq-Mars of embezzling a large sum of money in a fraud case, is the leading suspect. The government wants the unrecovered money in the fraud case back, and pressures Cinq-Mars to threaten Abigail with a life sentence for Florence’s murder unless she reveals where she hid the money. As Cinq-Mars questions the seven surviving women, he finds not all is as it appears, especially regarding each inmate’s crimes and the reason each was chosen for Lady Jail placement. His verbal sparring with Abigail is one of the book’s highlights. Bureaucratic intrigues and complications in Cinq-Mars’s love life enrich the plot. Fans of intelligent police procedurals will be rewarded.

March 1, 2021
After Nora Best's debut memoir about married sex made a moderate ripple in the publishing industry, she excitedly plans her next project: chronicling a year of simple joys traveling in an Airstream with her husband, Joe. That is, until she catches Joe and her best friend having an intimate farewell. Nora peels off in the Airstream, finally pulling into a campground in the Wyoming wilderness when she's too beat to drive. It's an exciting time in the middle of nowhere: the "Lot Lizard" killer has recently struck at a nearby truck stop, and a boundary-flouting bear is menacing the campground. Nonetheless, enthusiastically embraced by the campground's host couple, Miranda and Brad, Nora starts to believe she's stumbled on a viable plan B. But, after Brad disappears, plan B implodes: Nora becomes a suspect after a police dog somehow discovers Brad's T-shirt in her bed; Joe turns up, pressuring her to reconcile; and she's menaced by a faceless stranger. A suspenseful romp with a relatable narrator, a skillfully shrouded mystery, and a satisfying romance.

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