Just Jennifer

After Her by Joyce Maynard (William Morrow, September 2013)

Rachel and Patty grew up in the shadow of the hills of Marin County, California and in the shadow of a serial killer their father, the Chief of Detectives, was unable to catch.  Growing up in a small neighborhood, their parents divorced, their mother suffering from bouts of depression, Patty and Rachel learned to take care of themselves early on.  Using the mountains in their backyard as their playground, the girls have no fear of the wilderness and inherent dangers.  The girls also turn their fascinations toward their neighbors, using picture windows to catch glimpses of television shows they are unable to watch themselves, focusing on one man, his dog and the wife they only occasionally see. 

Beginning in 1979, over a dozen young women are murdered in the mountains and Rachel watches as a town’s fear turns to anger toward her father.  As his career slowly begins to come apart, Rachel decides it is up to her to trap a killer and restore her father’s career, only to make things worse, completely obliterating the career of a man she learns is dying and looking back on a life filled with regrets.

Thirty years later, Rachel receives a journal containing her father’s notes from the Sunset Strangler case, a case that remains unsolved even after a man confessed and was sentenced to jail for crimes Rachel---and her father---know he is innocent of.  Deciding it is time to vindicate her father, Rachel constructs a plan to smoke out a killer, but in doing so, uncovers family secrets that may have been best kept hidden.

Carefully constructed, much of the book builds Rachel’s relationships with her sister and her father and then deconstructs these relationships bit by bit.  After such careful plotting, the climax and finale of the book feel a little rushed, leaving readers anxious for just a bit more.  So much effort is to put into Rachel’s fourteen years to bring her abruptly thirty years into the future is a little jarring, though an unexpected meeting answers several questions left hanging.  The tension created by the serial killer is not that of urgency for him to be caught or who will be next, but one of the effects his presence in the mountains has on a community and the microcosm of Rachel’s family past present and future.  Joyce Maynard once again details and a family and the relationships within and without with exceptional care and attention.