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Rating (I don't do stars): Excellent, a top read for me. Enjoyed the characters and the plot. Very well executed. Highly recommended.
I was looking up descriptions of Edgar Award Nominees that I found on the CrimeReads blog and this book got my attention. It has a serial killer but as I discovered, it isn't the usual serial killer story. You know, a cat-and-mouse race to catch the killer before he kills again with the killer taunting the police.
I've linked below to several good reviews that go in-depth into the themes.
It is a slow burn that focuses on the victims —who are mostly sex workers —and those around them with one lone female detective who begins to see connections and patterns. These are the "these women" of the title. While a serial killer working South Central LA is the driving force, I see the novel more as speaking for women society discounts because of where they live and the work they do set against a backdrop of a killer preying on them.
Another character in the story is South Central Los Angeles itself, where these women live and work. As Feelia observers:
Want to know what's fucked up? South Central—everyone says it's ugly, that it's messed up. You ever take a step back and take a good look at it? A really good look. This is a nice fucking place.
The women are Feelia, Dorian, Kathy, Julianna, Essie, Marella, and Anneke. All are connected.
The story opens with Feelia, a prostitute. She bookends the story with the first and last chapters and her narrative is interspersed throughout the book separating each chapter. We meet her in 1999 when she has just survived a brutal attack by a john that left her with a slashed throat. She is brash and vulgar and wants someone to listen to her story. No one does for 15 years. Feelia is also convinced she is being stalked since she was attacked but, again, given her past, no one looks at her seriously. This is the major theme in the novel, not listening.
Dorian is the mother of Lecia a young woman who was a victim in an unsolved murder, her throat slashed and cast into the street. Because of where she lived, the police assumed she was a prostitute and didn't put any effort into finding the killer. Dorian wants justice for her daughter. Her nurturing nature extends to sex workers in her neighborhood, Kathy and Julianna. Kathy is a hardened, cynical veteran of the streets who Dorian feeds in her fish shack after hours despite the abuse Kathy heaps upon her. Kathy got Juliana into the life. Dorian is drawn to Julianna because Lecia babysat Julianna who was the last person to see her alive. Someone keeps leaving dead hummingbirds behind her restaurant which takes her to the police station.
Dorian is a well known nuisance about the station and she is passed on to a vice detective named Essie in a cruel reminder that her colleagues find both Essie and Dorian inconsequential. Essie is a Latina woman saddled with a white name, Esmerelda Perry. She is unusually short and there is a lot of doubt that she can actually do cop work Essie was demoted after an incident where she took the fall for another detective but no one believes she was innocent. She is also not heard and no one in homicide is interested in the connections and patterns she begins to unravel. I like the way the author portrays Essie. Most of the time people think she isn't paying attention when they talk and are often mystified by the out-of-the-blue questions she asks. I enjoyed the way Essie's seemingly aimless wandering though the cases comes together. If Pochoda writes more crime fiction, I hope she gives Essie a book.
Julianna is a particularly intriguing character and her story is perhaps more tragic because of what she could have been. She is a drug abusing, hard partying, sex worker but she has an artist inside her and the CLICKS of her cell phone camera gives us frozen glimpses of the sex workers. CLICK. She resists the efforts of Dorian who want to take her out of the life.
I don't want to say anything about Marella and Anneke (mother and daughter) except that they, and father/husband Roger, lived next door to Julianna's family. There would be spoilerage.
I really liked the way the novel ends.
New Thriller Challenges Readers to Take Another Look at 'These Women' (NPR)
"These Women" Breaks the Crime Thriller Mold (bitchmedia)
Keywords: serial killer, sex workers, crime fiction, murder, crime thriller
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