Why Aren't They Screaming?

Author Joan Smith's follow-up novel to her excellent debut, A Masculine Ending, is -- if anything -- even better. In it, London University professor Loretta Lawson heads to the country for some much-needed rest following a serious illness. She moves into a tiny cottage adjacent to the kind-hearted but forceful Clara Wolstonecroft. The fiery Clara has championed a women's peace camp that is protesting the American presence at the Dunston Royal Air Force base in the wake of the 1986 American bombing of Libya. She resettles the women on her own property after the town council has them removed from their original location.

Clara has been subject to shunning and sharp words from locals who prize the American presence for the money it brings show more to the town, some anonymous threatening notes and phone calls, vandalism, and some strange goings-on in the night. When Clara is murdered, Loretta is certain it isn't the work of burglars, as the police seem to think. As in A Masculine Ending, with the help of her estranged journalist husband, Clara starts investigating on her own.

The ending of Why Aren't They Screaming? comes as almost as great a shock as that of A Masculine Ending. Smith continues to write Dr. Loretta Lawson as a capable, intelligent amateur sleuth. She's not infallible or super-human, and she's someone I wished I knew in real life. The outcome of the book, while discouraging, was really realistic, I thought. While seeing the murderer get his just desserts would have been oh, so satisfying, in actuality, Smith's account is actually the more likely. It just saddens me to see the creep get away with it, and to have to bemoan a lack of justice for Clara and a second murder victim. I was very, very glad that I had already bought the third novel in the series, Don't Leave Me This Way, which I began reading just minutes after finishing Why Aren't They Screaming?. Be sure to have your own copy of Don't Leave Me This Way for when you turn the last page of Why Aren't They Screaming?, too! show less

woman professor on holiday finds body of hostess, murderer unpunished though detected, rather unsatisfactory

Tras un ataque de la aviación norteamerricana sobre Libia, un grupo de mujeres acampa en el exterior de una base militar en Gran Bretaña. La profesora universitaria Loretta Lawson se ve involucrada en la investigación de la desaparición de todas esas mujeres.