CRIME FICTION CRUNCH - BOOK REVIEW SNIPPETS

Before You Were Anne by Emiko Jean: Chelsey Calhoun, the police detective introduced in “The Return of Ellie Black,” has always felt slightly uncomfortable in her own skin.

The adopted daughter of a white Pacific Northwest couple — “the only Japanese kid for miles” — she constantly feels “the sensation of being Japanese enough for strangers to expect more, never Japanese enough to deliver.”

The tension between perceived and actual identity nearly bursts in BEFORE YOU WERE ANNE (Simon & Schuster, 320 pp., $29). Chelsey ought to finally be feeling some peace: She’s happily married, baby on the way and excelling at her work. But the killing of a Japanese American woman named Anne Walker and the disappearance of her teenage daughter, Naomi, propel Chelsey into difficult emotional and investigative territory. Anne, born Rika Takahashi, wasn’t who she appeared to be; to solve her murder, Chelsey must unravel layers of deception and secrecy.

Expertly weaving the perspectives of the Chelsey, Rika and Naomi, Jean creates a tapestry of women, all grappling with the expectations placed upon themselves by others — not to mention racism, misogyny and family strife.

- Author: Sarah Weinman, The New York Times

Read more... (James Sallis’s “Backwater” and three other new novels...)