Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan; Crown Books, $25
Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender activist, collegiate academic, and distinguished memoirist with over a dozen books to her credit, has recently released Long Black Veil, a thrilling suspense novel that mines the complexities of identity and probes the intertwined lives of a group of college graduates who are forever damaged by a night of spooky fun.
In 1980, a collective of restless students, friends, a young boy, and a high school teacher �" all thirsty for a ghostly spookfest before they finish school �" ventures into the shadowy confines of Philadelphia's dilapidated, long-shuttered Eastern State Penitentiary on an exploratory expedition. Panic ensues when they realize they've become locked inside, and each soon discovers, in an even more horrifying revelation, that one of the group has vanished. Though each of them manages to escape, the resulting trauma of their missing friend causes years of torment and repressed anguish.
Though the novel has some difficulty securing its footing from the opening chapters, Boylan reshuffles her characters and plot points, and regains narrative momentum by sprinting the story decades into the future, where the unsolved homicide continues to haunt the original classmates. Adding to the intrigue is some newly discovered evidence that brings the case back into the spotlight for dogged police detectives.
Now-prominent chef Jon Casey, a darling of the culinary world, is targeted as the killer, and only one in the group, a Maine-based travel writer now naming herself Judith Carrigan, has the proof that can set her friend free of the accusations. Though Judith's transgender odyssey may seem like old news to her now, she has failed to disclose her original identity to her own family. Her involvement with this new investigation could blow the lid off her former life, expose her "secret" to the quiet township she resides in, and have disastrous consequences for her married life.
There are many themes at play in the novel. Boylan appears to revel in probing the nuances of one's past life and how it can affect the present; and in placing a transgender character at the core of the melodrama. As a work of suspense, the book can be difficult to put down in the final third �" not for the mystery, which resolves itself rather unconvincingly, but for the amiability of its characters. This gang, and Boylan's knack for dark humor and snappy prose, drives the book. By the time all is said and done and the mystery is no more, there remains a relatable group of scarred individuals who must wrestle with the realities of aging while attempting to bury a past that refuses to let them rest in peace.