American Girl by Wendy Walker

 

This is a pretty decent crime/thriller novel, lots of people who aren't what (or who) they say they are, all kinds of small-town secrets (or maybe "secrets," given how open many of them seem to be) serving as foundation and as reveals. The novel has a lot to say about how small towns treat their girls and women, how little respect and trust they get from the boys and men around them; while some of that boils out of the subtext, it never really gets in the way of the story--and it's a pretty common theme, these days, especially as more women write in the genre/s. The main character is an autist, and that's handled relatively plausibly and readably--her narration is always comprehensible, if often at least a little askew--and all the characters here feel like people, flawed and struggling and barely making it as their small town dies around them. There are some very good people--the POV and some of her friends--and there are some pretty despicable ones--the murder victim and people associated with the crimes he was doing under cover of the businesses he owned; most of them, though are somewhere in the vast middle ground, including the killer. Lots of interesting things here, and I'll probably be looking for more of Ms. Walker's books.