Liz Moore: Long Bright River, 9781786331632, trade paperback, Hutchinson UK/Penguin Random House, available now,

German edition: Long Bright River, CH Beck, hardback,

 

Liz Moore’s “Long Bright River” is set in Kensington, a part of Philadelphia heavily populated by addicts in search of heroin or other substances, once a respectable neighborhood. The author has done neighborhood work there and her familiarity with the people living in this part of town makes this novel and the characters in it so very authentic.

“Long Bright River" is at times dark and heart wrenching, part crime fiction but mostly a story of two siblings, Kacey and Mickey Fitzpatrick, who grew up in rough circumstance with little love apart from the intimacy and bond they had between each other.  To toughen them up for the unfairness of life was the prime goal of their grandmother Gee, leaving little room for affection in her household where they grew up after their mother died, their father disappeared and where money was always tight.  The two sisters could not be more different in character: Mickey, shy, introverted, very smart , responsible, always protecting Kacey, eventually choosing a career as a police officer and raising a child as a single mother; Kacey a dare devil, outspoken, with a track record of bad man ending up on skid row as a heroin addict and prostitute.  The sisters haven’t spoken to each other for years but Mickey keeps track of her whereabouts on her patrol. When Kacey disappears after the murder of a heroin addicted young prostitute and someone Mickey knows from their childhood is also found murdered, she goes in frantic search of her sister as the killer clearly has it in for addicted prostitutes.  I will not be a spoil sport, but the solving of the murder actually plays a minor part in the novel, the history of the Fitzpatrick family and the unravelling of family secrets makes this such an intense and often almost painful, realistic read.  I like Liz Moore’s clean, clear cut prose which fits with the plot.