The story opens in 1966, when thirty-seven year old Maddie Morgenstern Schwartz is a beautiful Jewish housewife with an attorney husband named Milton, a teenage son called Seth, and a lovely home in a toney Baltimore neighborhood.
Many women of Maddie's generation would be happy with this life, but Maddie has ambitions for a career, so she moves out to follow her dreams.
Living in a small apartment - and barely making ends meet - Maddie decides to report her diamond ring stolen for the insurance money. This acquaints Maddie with an attractive black cop named Ferdie, with whom she embarks on a TORRID affair.
Given the racially charged times, Maddie and Ferdie's relationship is confined to Maddie's apartment save one 'date' at an Orioles game, where the duo pretend to be strangers making conversation.
While Maddie is struggling financially, an 11-year-old girl named Tessie Fine goes missing from Maddie's former Baltimore neighborhood. Maddie joins the search and stumbles on Tessie's body near her old high school make-out spot.
Afterwards, Maddie strikes up a correspondence with the prime suspect in Tessie's death, who's in jail, and unearths a clue about the crime. Maddie parlays this correspondence into a job at the Baltimore Star, assisting the consumer helpline columnist.
Maddie yearns to be a real reporter, however, and hits on a story that might be her way in. The body of a young black woman, Cleo Sherwood - who's been missing for many months - has been found in a lake in a Baltimore park. The only newspaper that features the story is the Baltimore Afro American, and the circumstances of Cleo's death remain unresolved. No one knows if it was an accident, a suicide, or a murder.....and no one is investigating.
Maddie sees this as an opportunity. She wants to look into Cleo's death and write a story, but the Star's editor says no one wants to read about the death of a black woman - especially a black woman like Cleo, who worked in a nightclub and had a dubious reputation. Nevertheless, Maddie persists. She speaks to Cleo's parents, the Sherwoods; visits the psychic the Sherwoods' consulted about their missing daughter; and goes to the nightclub where Cleo worked. This irks the nightclub owner, a criminal in the prostitute and drug business. Maddie also discovers the identity of the rich married man Cleo was seeing, and intrudes into his life. Maddie's actions are beyond foolhardy, but she seems oblivious.
Most of the book is narrated by two characters: Maddie and Cleo's ghost. Maddie's narrative ranges from her youth to her adulthood, and she reveals a life-altering secret from her past. In Cleo's sections, the woman addresses Maddie directly, and brags about her own good looks.....her green eyes and straight nose and enticing figure.
Cleo also talks about her beautiful clothes, her children, her parents, her aspirations, her need for a rich man; and her annoyance at Maddie's inquiries into her death.
Additional commentators include a journalist; a bartender; a waitress; a young boy; a young girl; a baseball player; an African-American policewoman; and more.
As the story unfolds, we get a feel for the racist segregated Baltimore of the mid-twentieth century, where women and people of color struggled to get ahead.
Black police officers, for example, didn't get patrol cars or radios, and had to use call boxes to communicate with the police station.
And women journalists were almost non-existent.
We also get a peek at Maddie's Jewish culture, with her kosher home; dual sets of dishes, versions of choreset (a Passover food) and chopped liver; Jewish mother 😊; and the eruv (wire boundary) that encloses some Jewish communities for religious reasons.
By the end we know what happened to Cleo Sherwood, what happened to Tessie Fine, and a lot more. 😲
I admire Maddie for having the strength to defy the old-fashioned traditions of her community and family, and to strive for a fulfilling career. I also applaud Cleo's determination to improve conditions for herself and her sons. In fact most of the characters (except for the out and out criminals) demonstrate admirable qualities as they deal with the everyday problems of life.
I'd recommend the book to fans of literary mysteries and historical novels.
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