Characters with disabilities are the focus of four books that make for great reading.
Legacy of Lies, by Jane A. Adams
For those who love their mysteries set in the English countryside, Legacy of Lies (Severn House, 2007), the fifth book in British writer Jane A. Adams’ Naomi Blake series, puts Naomi and her trusty guide dog Napoleon deep in English fen country. Her boyfriend Alec’s uncle is discovered dead on a walking path, presumably from a heart attack, but Naomi and Alec are persuaded to investigate further. Alec inherits Uncle Rupert’s country house and considerable savings along with his surprising past. Thugs terrorize Naomi at home and attack Alec in the street. True to form, Naomi isn’t frightened off, and the final showdown puts her intelligence, and her nerves, to the test.
Murder and the Golden Goblet, by Amy Myers
Looking for another English option, but this time a historical mystery? Father and daughter crime-writing team Peter and Georgia Marsh are at it again in Amy Myers’s Murder and the Golden Goblet (Severn House, 2007), the fourth in the series. This is a modern crime story, a cold case investigation, and a historical mystery rolled into one. Georgia and Peter, a retired police officer now using a wheelchair, investigate long-closed cases but often end up in the middle of very real and present danger. Their curiosity about the fate of a local man who supposedly drowned in a boating accident in 1961 leads to a WWII-era art recovery team and a group of Arthurian enthusiasts digging for a legendary golden goblet. They seem to be getting further from the truth at each step until Georgia discovers another body and with it, new clues.
Blindness Solves Murder in The Fault Tree, by Louise Ure
For a more contemporary story, consider Cadence Moran in Louise Ure’s The Fault Tree (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2007). Moran is a mechanic who trained as a child to tune engines blindfolded. After becoming blind in a car accident, she gets a job in a Tucson repair shop and puts her skills and keen senses to work. One night when she’s leaving work, a murder is committed nearby and the killers try to run her over before she can identify them. She tells the police everything she heard and smelled that night, and although they are skeptical at first, continued attempts on her life, each one giving her more clues, prove Cadence’s story and lead to a heart-racing finish.
Paraplegia in Falling Boy, by Alison McGhee
Lastly, for a thoughtful and engaging exploration of character and relationships set within the context of a past mysterious event, consider Alison McGhee’s Falling Boy (Picador, 2007). Sixteen-year-old Joseph, the central character in Falling Boy, has recently moved to Minneapolis after being released from a rehab hospital.
The cause of his paraplegia isn’t immediately clear but unfolds over the course of the story, which proceeds in a repetitive, almost incantatory style that reflects Joseph’s continuous remembering of his accident, his old life in New York, and his mother, who didn’t make the move across the country with him. Enzo, a 9-year-old girl who refers to herself as Mighty Thor, insists that Joseph is a superhero from the Island of Bees who was paralyzed in a heroic attempt to save his mother’s life. The lonely characters in this story eventually forge bonds among themselves through their different experiences of pain and loss and come to a new understanding of real heroism.
