REDEMPTION

Posh life and sudden death among the Massachusetts North Shore snobocracy.

Pampered Hope Lawrence is about to wed princely Jack Cabot III—the acknowledged catch of snooty Manchester-by-the-Sea—and is a wreck over it. In part because she really loves Carl LeFleur, who really loves her, but whose blue collar makes him an also-ran in the patrician marriage stakes. Carl’s a lobsterman, Jack’s a polo player, as Hope’s parents, Bill and Adelaide Lawrence, point out, quaking at the very thought of the working-class option. But Hope’s problems transcend the romantic. She has a fragile psyche, a runaway eating disorder, a sister who wants her man, a father who browbeats her, and a mom who’s betrayed her. She is, in fact, an emotional basket case, and when she’s found hanging from a light fixture, suicide seems a legitimate verdict. Enter former ADA Frances Pratt (Misfortune, 2001), Hope’s cousin and the family’s choice to get to the bottom of the murder Hope’s death turns out to be. Who could have hated sweet, troubled, innocuous Hope Lawrence enough to kill her? As Frances probes, and ugly, deeply hidden family secrets are tearfully yielded, it becomes clear that the list is shockingly long.

A two-hankie mystery in which not much happens and the characters cry a lot.