Burying Ben by Ellen Kirschman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A book that opens with the suicide of a sympathetic character is not a book I’d normally expect to like, or maybe even finish. Burying Ben caught me up fast and kept me turning pages straight through to the end. Unexpectedly, it’s an ideal read for this “perfect storm” season of coronavirus, wildfires and hurricanes, political deceit and treachery, when hugging a dear friend might kill you. Nobody (including the narrator) is quite who we think they are, or who they think they are. Kirschman is a deft, engaging writer with a unique advantage: she knows the real world of law enforcement up close, from both the roller-coaster level of cops joking over coffee and five minutes later risking their lives, and the expert-observer level of a clinical psychologist. So this is not a standard story of good guys trying to outwit bad guys and vice versa. The “mystery” doesn’t even really emerge until we understand how the characters’ depths, quirks, pasts, and the diverse pressures they work under became lethal for would-be Officer Ben Gomez. It’s a scary terrain–compelling because it’s authentic. And through the ups and downs Dr. Dot Meyerhoff perseveres, because what else can she do, with human lives and her own future at stake? Highly recommended!
