No One You Know

May 19, 2008
Richmond (The Year of Fog
) returns to San Francisco for another enjoyable blend of mystery and domestic fiction. Twenty years ago, Ellie Enderlin's sister, Lila, a mathematical prodigy, was murdered, and Andrew Thorpe, Ellie's English professor and a friend, exploited the family's grief with a true-crime bestseller that claimed Peter McConnell, Lila's married lover and colleague, was the killer. On a coffee-buying trip to Nicaragua, Ellie encounters McConnell, whose life was destroyed by Thorpe's conjecture. Sparked by this meeting, Ellie traces her way back through Lila's life and work, pursuing leads that the manipulative Thorpe abandoned when they did not fit his literary ambitions. Though many of Ellie's suspects lead her to dead ends, each gives her greater understanding of her sister, of mathematics and of herself. When she finally discovers the truth, Ellie's clarity about the past brings her new hope for the future. Vivid descriptions and loving explanations of the city and intelligent forays into the sciences of coffee and mathematics enhance Richmond's quietly captivating novel.

July 15, 2008
Following 2007's well-received "Year of Fog", Richmond's new novel explores the lasting effects of loss and betrayal. Twenty years later, Ellie Enderlin is still haunted by the unsolved murder of her older sister, Lila, a brilliant math Ph.D. candidate at Stanford. With her family in turmoil after Lila's death, Ellie confides in a sympathetic English professor who then uses her confidences to write a hugely popular true crime book. Now a professional coffee taster and buyer, Ellie is on a business trip in Nicaragua when she by chance encounters Peter, Lila's secret lover and the man who the book claimed was Lila's killer, although the conjecture was never confirmed. This intense meeting reopens the painful past and sends Ellie on a renewed quest to find her sister's killer. This thoughtful, gripping page-turner grabs the reader's attention from the first chapter. Recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/08.]Andrea Y. Griffith, Loma Linda Univ. Libs., CA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2008
As in her previous two novels, Dream ofthe Blue Room (2003) and the best-selling Year of Fog (2007), Richmond turns a family crisis into heartbreaking and compelling reading. Ellie Enderlin has never recovered from the unsolved murder of her sister, Lila, a Stanford math prodigy, some20 years earlier. The day her sister went missinghas become "the touchstone from which all other events unfurled." Compounding the tragedy is the fact that her English professor, the person to whom she confided some of her most intimate feelings about her shy, private sister, has turned the tragedy into a best-selling true-crime book. To have those moments turned into fodder for the publics voyeuristic appetite has felt like another violation. When Ellie, a world traveler and coffee buyer, meets up unexpectedly with the brilliant mathematician implicated in her sisters murder, she sees it as a way to wrest back control of her own narrative and solve the crime. Richmond gracefully weaves in fascinating background material on the coffee culture andthe field of mathematics as shethoughtfully explores family dynamics, the ripple effects of tragedy, andtheimportance of the stories we tell.Combine all that with perfect pacing and depth of insight, and you have a thoroughly riveting literary thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)