This novella first appeared as a serialization in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. The author freely admits that she appropriated ideas for the work from a variety of sources, making the story really a smorgasbord of unrelated themes. It is, however, a Tess Monaghan tale set, as usual, in Baltimore.
Eight months pregnant, Tess, ever the active one, is confined to bed and bored silly. She looks out the window (shades of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window] and sees a woman in a green raincoat walking a dog with a matching green sweater, who she then notices on a daily basis. Days later, when she doesn’t see the woman, she becomes, in her state of ennui, obsessed: Where is the woman? Then she sees the dog running around unaccompanied. It is enough to set Tess off in her investigative mode, enlisting others to assist in discovering what has happened to the woman.
Other elements of the novella include observations of love between various characters, the development of Tess as she progresses in her pregnancy and, presumably, future motherhood, and some insights into her friend Whitney. All in just a slender volume. Perhaps if the novella were developed into a full-fledged novel, this hodgepodge of subject matter could have been more fully developed, rather than with just token appearances. Nevertheless, it is written with the author’s accustomed smoothness and is an enjoyable read.
