Inspired by the true story of Julius Salsbury, a Baltimore gambling kingpin who disappeared in 1970, Laura Lippman's After I'm Gone imagines the repercussions on the lives of the women left behind when a bookmaker skips town to avoid jail time.
Ten years after the disappearance of Felix Brewer, his mistress Julie Saxony vanished as well. Although hikers found her remains in a park years later, the murder remains unsolved. Now Roberto "Sandy" Sanchez, a retired detective working cold cases for extra money, has set out to find the truth behind her death, and all his best leads center on Felix. As Sandy interviews Felix's oldest friends, alternating flashback chapters take readers back to the beginning of Felix's story as seen through the eyes of Bambi, his beautiful but increasingly disillusioned wife; Julie, the steadiest of his many mistresses; and his three daughters, who grow up without a father and under the shadow of their mother's financial struggles. (When Felix went missing in 1976, the money he intended to leave with his family disappeared, too.)
Lippman cuts straight to the emotional marrow of her characters' secret selves for a stylish yet juicy look at the effects of a cowardly disappearance. While an astute reader may spot the killer, the motive will leave readers surprised and saddened, and the epilogue to the story of Felix himself leaves a bittersweet sense of poetic justice. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager at Latah County Library District and blogger at Infinite Reads