Burying the Read: Par for the Corpse

 

I so badly wanted to use "par for the corpse" even though, despite its cover, this book has nothing to do with golf.  But golf is a dad thing and so is Leslie Meier's Father's Day Murder.  Sort of.  This time, Lucy Stone goes to Boston to accept an award for investigative journalist of the year.  But when she sees what the other women are wearing, her beloved bright sheath makes her feel like she never left Tinker's Cove (okay, so already this isn't a Father's Day thing, but I can only stray so far from my area of expertise): 

"It didn't take Lucy long to realize her dress was all wrong; most of the woman were wearing beaded cocktail dresses or long evening gowns.  In fact, she realized when they finally found their table and sat down, every single woman at the banquet was dressed in some variation of black.  Black silk, black chiffon, black with beads, black with rhinestones, short black cocktail dresses, black evening dresses, and even black pantsuits.  All black.  There was no way she was going to get lost in this crowd, not in her pink-and-orange poppy print.  In fact, she couldn't have chosen a dress that would make her stand out more." (54-55) 

This, of course, made me feel for Lucy -- and fans of bold clothing everywhere.  But wardrobe woes are only the tip of the investigative iceberg.  The real trouble starts when newspaperman of the year Luther Read gets murdered.  Although his son is hauled off in handcuffs, Lucy is unconvinced that patricide is to blame.  She wastes no time in tracking down Luther's disgruntled relatives, business rivals, and jilted lovers in search of the one he pushed too far.  But she still finds time to take in a museum or two and visit Boston's famed Filene's Basement (more garb gab, hooray!).  Now if only she can catch the killer in time to serve her husband his Father's Day breakfast.    

Still, Father's Day Murder isn't all sightseeing and red herrings.  Below its country girl-in-the-big-city surface is a serious message.  Namely, that cutting Luther loose was one way for the killer to put down the patriarchy.  Because Luther, it seems, wasn't a very nice man.  He was one of those bosses who took advantage of his female staff, the kind of seemingly innocuous monster who hid behind his power and gender.  What's more, a second murder -- this time of a young female reporter -- spotlights dangers to women in the workplace on a terrifying new level.  And Lucy can't help but think about that, especially after overhearing the unkind commentary of two male journalists: 

"What a pair!  So smug and complacent and so sure of their place in the world.  They'd never had to battle the glass ceiling; they'd never had to prove themselves the way women did in the news industry  They were the ones who checked out the girls and made passes; they stared and ogled and commented and joked.  All in good fun, of course.  Safe in their thick-soled shoes and confident in their strength, they had no idea what it was like to be five-foot-two and one hundred and ten pounds, late at night, alone in a dark parking lot." (221) 

That's all Lucy needs to hear.  Unstoppable in her red Mootsies Tootsies, she shows the boys in blue a thing or two.

Ovaries are nothing to argue with.