A Commonplace Killing: A Novel
In the midst of a crime wave in London in 1946, a woman found strangled in a bombsite is called a commonplace killing. But Divisional Detective Inspector Jim Cooper is bothered by it. The victim does not seem to be a tart, her state of dress aside, and this does not seem a standard sex crime. Separate narrations in an intricately constructed chronology follow the police investigation, the victim, and the perpetrator, and each plotline is permeated with the atmosphere of deprivation and depression of postwar London, with rationing and black marketing, homes barely habitable because of bombing, returning veterans scarred by their experiences and scrambling to find work, women missing the former atmosphere of sexual abandon, and everyone trying to adjust to life as it has become. In fiction based on fact, Busby not only captures time and place but makes them key players in this fast-moving crime novel with its characters indelibly marked by war. Busby died in September 2012 at 51, just after finishing this novel. Her death is a loss to the world of writing. --Michele Leber