Paperback, 336 Pages

Adult-Crime Mystery
Review Copy/ Tlc Tour

Warning: Mild Langauge, violence, prostitution

3/5- Stars

In the comfortable suburb where Heloise Lewis lives, she’s just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play. In the state capitol, she’s the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.

But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she’s the woman of your dreams—if you can afford her hourly fee.

But now, after a decade, her secret life is under siege. Her once oblivious accountant is asking loaded questions. Her longtime protector is hinting at new dangers. Her employees can’t be trusted. One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide. Or is it? And then she learns that her son’s father, a killer and former pimp, might be released from prison. With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life—again. Disappearing will be the easy part. The trick will be living long enough to start a new life.

Thoughts

When She was Good was a very interesting story and one that was thought provoking diving into. Not so much was this book about the act of prostitution but more so the business of running prostitution and the crappy childhood of main character Heloise aka single soccer mom, aka suburban madam.

While the book was defiantly intriguing it was more a tale of a woman with a broken childhood turned prostitute, turned business woman, than the mystery I was expecting. The plot driven by a good madam verses mean pimp had a twist of suspense but mostly fell into a tad one sided dialog on the issue of legalizing prostitution or at least built up to that point in the end. Obviously main character Heloise represented a scenario where she could run a profitable business in the sex service industry, while her previous pimp was the typical power, money hungry man who exploits and hurts his girls. The book while highlighting the good and the bad failed to represent the moral magnitude of the problem itself. Im sure Lippman wanted to give her readers a good "who done it" vibe but I couldn't shake the feeling while reading that Heliose was made out to be a character whom we sympathized with and than emotionally manipulated to justify the prostitution in the story. No matter what even if prostitution were made legal with legit business owners there will always be women who are degraded, trafficked and under age girls who are and will be exploited. A madam in the end is just a pimp with lipstick and for every one that is good, you have thirty who are bad.

~Thanks to TLC book tours and William Morrow for review copy.

Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and returned to her hometown in 1989 to work as a journalist. After writing seven books while still a full-time reporter, she left the Baltimore Sun to focus on fiction. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Knowand Another Thing to Fall, she has won numerous awards for her work, including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity.

To learn more about Laura’s work, visit her website or connect with her on Facebook.