Raquel Laing #2
Those Who Are Gone is the follow-up to Laurie King’s excellent 2022 novel, Back to the Garden, one of my favorite books of that year. Her new effort is definitely a different animal, as she goes back to her roots with a complex police tale reminiscent of A Grave Talent, for which she won the 1993 Edgar for best first novel.
Equal to the modern master of the genre, Michael Connelly, this is a procedural with bells on. Main character Raquel Laing is a homicide cop still cleaning up a timeline which stretches back to King’s previous book, while at the same time trying to get a grip her own troubled and murky past. She’s what we might recognize as neurodivergent, as many social cues elude her, but she’s compensated by developing the skill of reading micro expressions, allowing her to translate her interpretations into an out of the box solution to various mysteries, solutions which are quite often correct. Her glitches relating to other humans make her a challenge as a partner, and in this novel, she has a new one named Pam, who seems more interested in her Manolo Blahniks and boyfriend than her job.
Raquel maintains ties with Al of the cold case squad, and she has worked cold cases in the past (see Back to the Garden) but after an injury she’s returned as a homicide consultant. The book moves back and forth in time a bit, taking in the case that left Raquel injured as well as a new one that seems connected. The other mystery that needs to be resolved is the question of her parentage. She still lives with her adopted sister, Dee, whose parents, the Laings, took Raquel in at age 9 after her mother’s and father’s death and subsequent dreadful foster home experiences.
Raquel’s father was a drug dealer, and her memories of him, while not awful, are also tied to a variety of “uncles” and “aunts” in the same business, one she hadn’t understood as a child, but one that, as a cop, she now knows only too well. She was investigating the vicious murder of a lower-level drug dealer when she was shot, and the aftershocks of that case continue to reverberate throughout the story.
King’s nimble time hopping is not confusing, but rather serves to elucidate the narrative, both in terms of Raquel grappling with her family’s past, as well as managing to tie together the various threads of the story. Another less expert writer could very well have produced a boring book, but in King’s hands it’s unputdownable, as the reader races ahead, curious about what Raquel is discovering about herself and the murder of the young drug dealer.
King’s mind is far reaching and over arching, examining every single aspect of the story she tells, taking in tiny details and big ones, creating books compellingly rich and layered. It’s a high wire act, and I almost expected the skillful balancing act of this complicated narrative to go awry, but thankfully, it never did and the result is an extremely well done and memorable book. There’s a certain special something in King’s writing that pulls directly on the heartstrings, explaining her legions of devoted fans. — Robin Agnew