What Has Become of You
After a girl she hates in high school is murdered by a serial killer, Vera Lundy is hooked on true crime. Decades later, in the midst of writing a book about that killer, she gets a substitute teaching job at a private high school near her Maine hometown. Among the girls in Vera’s three English classes of mostly privileged teenagers, she is particularly taken with scholarship student Jensen Willard, whose writing shows talent as well as a dark side. Meanwhile, Vera seems unable to avoid murder: the middle-school niece of the school’s dean was recently killed, shocking the community, and just months later Vera finds the strangled body of one of her students. Watson’s second novel, after her acclaimed Asta in the Wings (2009), has all the elements of a suspenseful mystery, but it fails to gel, at least in part because of its protagonist: Vera’s excessive drinking and lying to police make her a less than sympathetic character. Readers may appreciate more Watson’s well-drawn teenage characters and reflections on literary themes. --Michele Leber