Good Me Bad Me
Ali Land
Michael Joseph, $32.99
Readers who hear a faint echo in the basic plotline of this novel are probably thinking of Innocent Blood, the P.D. James novel about a young adoptee who discovers that her birth mother is in jail for murder. Ali Land's debut is less assured and more melodramatic than the James classic, with sentences overwritten and plotting hands overplayed, but it's still an interesting treatment of the subject: what happens to the children of criminals? Annie's mother thrives on cruelty and eventually crosses the line into serial murder. When Annie finally turns her mother in to the police, she must prepare for her role as witness at the trial, and is taken into foster care by a psychologist called Mike. The resulting disruption to Mike's family is all too predictable, and while the ending is less predictable, most readers will see it coming.