FICTIONAL lives are rarely as messy as that of Jane Howard, the plaything of fate in Douglas Kennedy's latest novel. A precis: bright young woman from a dysfunctional family does doctorate at Harvard, has affair with professor, is struck by tragedy, grieves, goes into the world of high finance, loses her job, goes back to academia, falls in love (sort of), has daughter, is struck by tragedy, grieves, tries to leave the world in various ways.

Kennedy is known for writing authentically about complex women, .... and Jane certainly fits the bill, narrating her story directly and with easy intelligence. ...an unconvincing shift into detective fiction towards the end of this otherwise absorbing novel.