SAY HER NAME

A biracial London physician was brought up by a Black adoptive family; her search for her roots plunges her into a series of revelations that hit her like slaps in the face.

The death of her beloved adoptive Mummy Cherry changes everything for respiratory specialist Dr. Eva Harris. Already suspended since a patient filed a lawsuit against her hospital after Eva, exhausted by caring for Cherry, nearly gave him a fatal overdose of drugs, she lashes out at her adoptive father, retired Metropolitan Police detective Carlton "Sugar" McNeil, when she becomes convinced he’s taken up with Ronnie, his housekeeper. And she resolves to track down the birth mother who gave her up as an infant. Her search is unexpectedly accelerated when the company to whom she sends a DNA sample puts her in touch with retired White businessman Danny Greene, who claims he’s her biological father and says he’d love to meet her. The meeting, which includes Danny’s White daughter Miriam, is at best a mixed success. But Eva, feeling her husband, White accountant Joe Harris, slipping away from her, is so hungry for family that she meets with Danny again and even tries to mend fences with Sugar. Uneasy about a disagreement she overhears between her adoptive father and police Cmdr. John Dixon about the Met’s reluctance to commit more resources to an ancient missing person case, Eva focuses more and more intently on the very different responses to the well-publicized disappearance of blond young Poppy Munro in 1994 and the virtually unacknowledged vanishing of four Black women that same year. The solution, less surprising than depressing, confirms Eva’s darkest fears about the low value assigned women of color by the Met in particular and contemporary Britain in general.

A strong dose for readers interested in watching racial prejudices play out at every possible opportunity.