| First Avenue by Lowen Clausen |
| (Onyx, $6.99, V) ISBN 0-451-40948-5 |
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Sam Wright is a uniformed police officer with the Seattle Police Department; his main beat is in the skid row First Avenue area. On a call to a residential hotel he discovers the body of a dead baby. Her young mother is missing. A neighbor reports that the baby cried and cried, but no one investigated. Sam recognizes the child; she was the daughter of a young woman, Alberta Sanchez, who worked in a donut shop that he occasionally patronizes because he suspects the slimy owner is engaging in illegal activity. Sam knows that Alberta was a devoted mother and would not willingly have abandoned her child.
Meanwhile, a new girl, Maria, has begun working at the shop. She had been told Sam can be found there sometimes, and she particularly wants to meet him. The ensuing police investigation will broaden to include illegal drug trafficking and involve some members of prominent Seattle families and possible police corruption. This brief synopsis only skims the surface of this multi-dimensional story. Onyx is wisely marketing First Avenue, the author’s debut work, as straight fiction rather than as a police procedural novel in spite of the mystery that is the central core of the plot. The emphasis is on character rather than plot, and the mystery doesn’t begin to pick up steam until well past the midway point. The story frequently embarks on digressions concerning the lives, relationships, and background of Sam, another police officer Kathryn Murphy, and Maria. Some of these, such as the adulterous relationship between Sam and a neighbor, are tangential and do not serve to advance the storyline. Moreover, some are left unresolved at the book’s end. Many of the disparate plot threads do eventually come together by the end, but the book’s pacing suffers from the lack of a cohesive plot. Sam is a compassionate and sympathetic, if distant, character. He is haunted by the baby’s death from dehydration. It is his conviction that Alberta would never have abandoned her child that is the motivating force behind discovering the ultimate solution to the crime. His kindness to a homeless drunk proves pivotal in his investigation. And he’s no rough, gruff, stereotypical cop -he commutes from home by kayak across Elliot Bay and has published a volume of poetry. Nevertheless, he remains an aloof character for most of the book. Readers who are looking for a spine-tingling, tense suspense novel are likely to be disappointed in First Avenue. My attention sometimes lagged as I was reading, and I found it failed the put-down/pick-up test. The writing in this debut novel shows signs of promise, but it’s not one I can recommend whole-heartedly.
--Lesley Dunlap |
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