Fiona Davis can always be relied upon to create a good story focused on historically inspired events and buildings set in New York. This one was a little bit different since both of the time lines focused on the same person, Marion Brooks, just about 36 years apart. Most of the other novels of hers I have read have had a larger gap in time and the person in the more recent time line is trying to figure out the mystery while the reader knows more, getting both perspectives of the dual narrative. This one, however, is one woman reflecting on a specific time in her life, when she became a Rockette.
Overall, I think it was a good and gripping story, but I always think it’s one of her less impactful novels. I think I was just expecting something a bit different from the way older Marion was introduced and how it seemed to frame her relationship to her past – everything that did happen still completely fit and I appreciate it went the way it did but I had been preparing for even more pathos and tragedy.
What we do get, though, is a glimpse into life as a Rockette, family dynamics and the restrictions women faced in the 50s in choosing their own paths, and the beginnings of criminal profiling as a bomber continues to haunt the city after a 16 year spree (inspired by true events but modified enough for the story that Davis didn’t keep the name of the historical perpetrator).
Marion has always been the pretty daughter, and is now the one dating a promising young man, on the verge of engagement, while her sister is the dutiful, smart yet plain one. After Marion loses her job at a dance studio and realizes how close her beau is to proposing, she has a bit of crisis, wanting something more, and goes to the auditions for that year’s line up of the Rockettes. She gets it, and despite a huge fight with her father, pursues this new job and a life in the city. When the bombed strikes Radio City Music Hall, Marion becomes obsessed with doing something and finding the responsible man. Due a chance meeting earlier in the novel, she knows a young doctor working at a local institute who seems to have a gift for reading and understanding people, leading to him creating a criminal profile of the man they should be looking for.
Overall, good story, plus who doesn’t love profiling – there’s a reason Mindhunter and Criminal Minds are so popular. Of the ones I have read by Davis, The Address is still my favorite (followed by The Lions of Fifth Avenue) so I would probably start there with her unless the Rockettes or crime are just very much your cup of tea. There is also a reveal about the author at the end and you can see how it shaped parts of the story, so I really do understand why she made the narrative choices she did and appreciated that personal connection.