City of Light by Lauren Belfer
( Dial Press., $24.95, V) ISBN 0-385-33401-X
***
I enjoyed this book. The two most interesting characters were the city of Buffalo and its former mayor, Grover Cleveland -- a president whom I always thought hailed from Ohio. Big mistake. The city is omnipresent in the book, but Cleveland has only two enormous scenes, one of which is a flashback. Still, who would have guessed that Buffalo was so interesting, or so vital at the turn of the century? Who would have guessed that even one-hundred years ago, a president would sample female flesh as if it were his sacred duty?

I’m not sure that this is a mystery story. Certainly, people are discovered dead, and other people attempt to discover why. But the discovery is not made as a result of the searchers’ efforts. In fact, I’m afraid that hardly anything in this story proceeds from the actions of the protagonists. Which makes me think this is a “literary” story; and not a “mystery” at all.

The heroine is Louisa Barrett, headmistress of the Macaulay School for Girls. The story begins at the death of Louisa’s best friend and with the death of an engineer from the electricity plant at Niagara. Over the course of the story, Louisa discovers that the world is nothing like she had assumed. She discovers that the world is much more malevolent than she could have guessed.

If Louisa were not so divorced from her own emotional response, a reader might have felt some grief over her dilemma. As it is, we can only watch with some dispassion as water is diverted from the falls to provide alternating current for the captains of industry.

--Lee Gilmore

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