PENUMBRA

PENUMBRA
by Carolyn Haines
St. Martin’s Minotaur
http://stmartins.com
ISBN: 0312351607
$9.34, Hardcover

Post World War II, Jade Dupree owns her own beauty shop and is also the undertaker’s assistant in the small Southern town of Drexel, Mississippi. Jade is half-black, her white mother Lucille Longier having handed her over to her black handyman and his wife to raise. Jade’s white half-sister Marlena is married to Lucas Bramlett, the wealthiest man in Drexel. Although Jade’s skills as a hairdresser are sought after by the rich, white women of Drexel, she understands she will never be considered anything but black and these women are not above pointing this out. When Marlena is brutally raped and her daughter disappears, Jade begins to spend time with her sister, hoping to find out who raped her and where her daughter is. Sheriff’s deputy Frank Kimble is investigating the case and he and Jade share an attraction for one another which Frank is more than willing to pursue but Jade reluctant.

Haines excels at portraying the temperamental atmosphere of a small Southern town’s racial infrastructure. There is a melancholic cast to the story, told from Jade’s point of view, that brings to heart the biases blacks faced during that era, as well as the prejudices some held against whites and their own race. The mystery isn’t a complex one and more tertiary to the story than the complexities of and interactions between characters.