Review by Michelle Palmer
Heloise Lewis is a woman with secrets. To the casual observer, Heloise is completely ordinary. She is head of a lobbying group for equal pay for women. Her son, Scott, plays soccer and attends a local school. She helps with the PTA and is a good, but quiet, neighbor. Heloise Lewis is also a madam for Washington D.C.’s rich and powerful, with a little black book that could ruin lives.
As a young girl, Heloise was told repeatedly by her abusive father that she had “a nothing face.” Paired with her “nothing face” is a fabulous body, which finally gives Heloise a way out. When she can’t take the abuse another day, Heloise leaves home for the streets, and quickly falls under the spell of Val, an equally abusive pimp who molds Heloise into the perfect prostitute. Heloise’s dreams are bigger than turning the next trick: when she becomes pregnant with Val’s child, Heloise devises a plan that not only sets Val up for prison time, but allows her the chance to start her own business.
When the book opens, Heloise has learned that a fellow madam, someone she knows from her days on the street with Val, has been murdered. Although the police have very few clues, Heloise knows that this crime will have a direct impact on her life: the victim is one of the last witnesses to the murder that sent Val to prison. Suddenly, everything that Heloise has worked for is tumbling down—her anonymity, her livelihood and most important, the protection of Scott, who is Val’s son.
What follows is a game of psychological cat and mouse. Heloise does not know who she can trust, how much Val knows about her role in his conviction, and whether she will be the next witness to be eliminated. This is Lippman’s greatest strength—the nail-biting, squirm-inducing tension that leads you inexorably toward the book’s thrilling climax.
Despite the storyline, And When She Was Good is not a story about prostitution. It is about one woman’s ability to create a worthwhile life born out of abuse and terror. Heloise may start out using the only asset she feels she can offer—her body—but it is her spirit and her intellect that help her to rise above her traumatic upbringing and reinvent herself.
Lippman is the author of 17 other novels as well as a book of short stories, many of them New York Times best-sellers. Lippman’s books have also won numerous awards, including the coveted Edgar Award. And When She Was Good has the distinct honor of being chosen as Stephen King’s favorite book of 2012.
Happy reading!
Michelle Palmer is Read To Succeed’s One Book Committee Co-Chair and author of the book blog Turn of the Page (michellepalmersbooks.blogspot.com).
