GUILTY MIND

Just after cabinetmaker Benno Servi walks his foster child Clea’s babysitter to her new Upper West Side apartment, someone enters and kills poor Ellen, a recent grad student now working at the ESL Institute under the direction of handsome, charismatic Arthur Nessim. Benno, pegged by New York’s finest as a wandering husband, is soon cooling his heels down in the gritty Tombs awaiting arraignment, while Anita, his social-worker wife (Death of an Amiable Child, 2000), wrestles with his possible infidelity and jailing, which certainly won’t help their plans to adopt Clea. Never once, however, does she think Benno a murderer, and when her mother arrives for moral support, she begins investigating, focusing on Ellen’s former boyfriend Jamie, her married but philandering boss Nessim, and Nafissa, a student having difficulty explaining cultural differences to her strict brother. Little does Anita know that she’s due for her own emotional trauma when Aaron Wertheim—the pricey, talented lawyer her mother has arranged to take on Benno’s case—turns out to be, unbeknownst to either of them, her father. Grappling with family secrets, work stress, and the complexities of second-language communication, Anita finally finds a sort of relief when she gets a chance to stand off against Ellen’s killer.

Skimpy plotting buoyed by fluent prose and interesting exchanges between cultures and generations.