SING HER DOWN

Two women with bad blood between them get out of jail during the pandemic and head for more trouble.

Pochoda has carved a place for herself in California noir—and her lockdown Los Angeles is about as noir as it gets, a hellscape overrun by homeless encampments, contagion, and violence. Florence “Florida” Baum and Diana Diosmary “Dios” Sandoval both receive early release from their sentences due to Covid-19. By jailhouse reputation, Florida is a party girl who got in too deep, Dios a ruthless force of nature (though her criminal career began when she was a scholarship student at a fancy New England college). Amid a riot during their incarceration, a woman who was cellmates with each of them at different times was murdered; their shared responsibility for the death has put them at odds. Florida wants nothing to do with Dios; Dios thinks they are bound for life. Shortly after both go on the run from their two-week quarantine, another murder is committed, and soon a female LAPD officer named Lobos is on their trail. The story is laid out in shifting perspectives, with much of the plot conveyed either in awkward dialogue, by a Greek chorus–type character back at the jail, or by clunky internal ruminations. “When do you become the thing you’ve kept at bay? When do you become the abused or the abuser?…When do you become the person for whom violence is easily within arm’s reach?" These questions are very personal to Officer Lobos as she is being stalked by her mentally ill husband, a subplot that is one very heavy cherry on top of this nasty sundae. Lobos is also in a debate with her police partner about just how violent women can be; Pochoda’s point seems to be there’s no limit. Neither Florida nor Dios feels much like a real person (thank God), and there’s little suspense as they move toward their dark outcome, which is immortalized in a mural described in the first pages of the book.

Awful people doing awful things in an awful place and time, plus talking ghosts and walking murals.