Theater of the mind
Gifted story stylist Rader-Day weaves exquisite fabric from raw material

Lori Rader-Day is back with her seventh paperback from the William Morrow Books imprint of Harper Collins. “The Death of Us” was released quietly one week ago with a ho-hum publicity campaign for a crime fiction writer I have admired since 2014. Her first big-label appearance of “The Black Hour” won her a prestigious Anthony Award for Best First Novel. Then, in 2016, Rader-Day wowed them again with Simon & Schuster’s Mary Higgins Clark Award for “Little Pretty Things,” a book I personally think is one of the best crime fictions written by an American author. In addition, she has won three Anthony Awards and an Agatha Award in 2021 for the Best Historical Novel with “Death at Greenway.”

Why William Morrow does not put Rader-Day between cloth covers and spend some money to position her where she belongs with the big dogs, simply bewilders me. I even expressed my outrage to her on the phone a few years ago after “Little Pretty Things” swept my feet out from under me, I found a reserved, thoughtful and comfortable young Chicagoan with a husband and a dog. She also is a co-chair with the Midwest Mystery Conference, a past president of Sisters in Crime and a teacher of creative writing for Northwestern University.

However, she said she is satisfied, and her work is satisfying, too. So, I’ll keep my career counseling to myself and tease you into spending 20 bucks to share Lori Rader-Day’s report on the curious machinations of a small town that appears to operate under clearly established codes of civility, until it doesn’t. Rader-Day is a very fine, simple storyteller who appears to be in no hurry and with no need to embellish to complicate her carefully spun yarns. The yarn in “The Death of Us” is peopled with crosscut characters described by their actions, not by continuous fleshing out of their personalities, tics and prejudices. With Rader-Day, her players carry the plot, not the other way around. And that approach is how people operate. We don’t know everybody’s secrets, how they got to be who they are, their sins and fault lines, until they show us.

“The Death of Us” begins as a simple police procedural when a few high school kids cut football practice to go for a joyride in Tanner Larkin’s fancy new car. They wind up sucked off a tight curve and up a dirt embankment nearly into an old water-filled quarry at Link and Lissette Kehoe’s place. The school is alerted. Marshall Mercer Alaric arrives, along with worried parents, hoping to find their kids unhurt. In a panic, Liss shows up to be absolutely sure her son Callan has been saved from her irrational fear that he will disappear from her life any moment.

You see, Callan was days old when he was handed to Liss on her doorstep in the pouring rain by an angry, drunk Ashley Hay 15 years ago. Link admitted to having an affair with Ashley and was the father of the boy. Liss clung to Callan with the fear that Ashley would some day return to claim her child. Liss hovered over Callan in constant worry of losing him.

This day, in the mud of the steep bank, Callan himself pointed out to Marshal Alaric a hulk of a car submerged under water in the quarry – a car just like Ashley’s. Was it Ashley? Was it murder? Did Link get rid of what could turn out to be a lifetime of extortion? Could it be suicide? If we knew more about the actors, if Rader-Day would give us more to dissect, something more than cardboard cutouts who don’t give away anything, we could surmise, deduce and solve this case.

But we don’t even know what these characters look like – the color of their hair, their height, weight – or even their feelings. We know nothing about the players aside from the parts they play. And Rader-Day weaves fabric out of raw material, creating theater of the mind. How exciting.

Don’t miss “The Death of Us” by this wonderful stylist. And don’t forget to ask for your 15% Murder Ink discount from our precious Maria’s Bookshop.