BREAKFALL

A woman is forced to confront the consequences of many bad choices over the course of nine months.

When two policemen show up on her doorstep asking about a white Chevy van registered under her name, Mina Bansky knows this is just the fallout from one more bad decision in her life. She agreed to register the van for a friend named Dylan, a former felon, mostly because he “had a PhD in philosophy and the bluest eyes she had ever seen.” Newly divorced and the mother of a busy toddler, she doesn’t have time to dwell on this complication. She does, however, call her former lover, Matthew, who is also a cop, only to find that he had left town with his family, trying to work it out, but is now back in Chicago. Through flashbacks to the previous June and July, it’s revealed that Mina and Matthew met at their neighborhood jujitsu gym and proceeded to have a flaming affair until their spouses found out about the betrayal. Then, in the present time, trying to deal with the temptation of Matthew’s proximity, Mina finds her life becoming even more complicated when Dylan’s body turns up several days later. Maybe her ex-husband, who might have connections to the Russian mob, killed him? Or maybe it was because Dylan was running drugs in the van? Regardless, this little bit of mystery takes a back seat to endless cycles of Mina-and-Matthew fighting and Mina-and-Matthew sex. The novel moves back and forth from the previous summer to the present, but no matter the time period, the conflicts—and the horniness—remain the same. Mina’s got a backbone, and she refuses to apologize for wanting what she wants even as she feels shame for cheating on her husband; there is strength in her imperfection. There’s no accounting for taste, or pheromones, but she deserves better.

A plucky heroine, a kind-of mystery, and a lot of sexual hijinks keep it interesting.