Wordhunter
by Stella Sands
Fiction/Harper
A bestselling author of six true-crime stories, Stella Sands of Sag Harbor is no newcomer to catching the culprit. Bringing her years of knowhow to her first novel, she showcases crime sleuth, Maggie Moore. Tattooed—pierced, and downing beer for breakfast, Maggie is no Miss Marple. But when it comes to words… watch out!
The top student in her graduate forensic linguistic class at Florida’s Rosedale University, Maggie has an uncanny ability to solve crimes by diagraming sentences (a visual process that involves a series of horizontal and diagonal lines that show how words in a sentence function and relate to each other rather than their order). Unusual spelling, verb usage, faulty phrasings and out-of-state colloquialisms—“Sometimes referred to as verbal DNA”—can be as important as a fingerprint when profiling a suspect. It was such departures from standard English in the notes that Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, sent to the media that finally got him arrested.
Twenty-one and on her own since she was sixteen, a no-nonsense gal “with a near-perfect photographic memory” who palls around with bikers, Maggie’s language is far from the king’s English. Yet she diagrams Proust for fun. “Fifteen words is the average sentence length in the English language. Come on, Marcel, a hundred and forty-one words? Really?”
A heroine who is both literate—her slew of tattoos are quotes of famous authors—and prone to potty mouth, Maggie taps into her knowledge of Cajun dialect to help the local police catch a stalker/rapist and develops a reputation as a crime buster in the precinct.
Impressed with her expertise, a handsome professor takes an interest in Maggie’s methods. Flattered at first, she becomes his research assistant. Later, events turn downward when the professor accuses Maggie of plagiarism. In some exciting scenes with the university’s Ethics Committee, Maggie defends herself in detail and makes her own accusation. Student against esteemed professor becomes a compelling “me too” issue that involves other female students.
Called upon again when the Chief of Police’s young daughter is abducted, she’s reminded of her “jump-rope” friend Lucy, whom she discovered missing from her trailer when they were both fourteen. “Broken glass littered the floor. A jagged line of blood stretched from her feet to Lucy’s room.” Plagued by painful memories of Lucy’s disappearance—and guilt—she thinks she could have known more or done more to prevent it—Lucy starts drinking in earnest.
Silas Jackson, a detective on the force, literally gets on her case when she answers the door at 8:30 a.m., “a Dixie cup of vodka in hand… and two shots at the bar,” a lifestyle that lands her in the ER. He’s starting to care about her. A reserved man-of-a-few words, most of them short and to the point—” Excuse me, what the heck do you think I do for a living. I went to the Cypress Havens PD and had them pull the folders,” he says to Maggie when he reopens Lucy’s case and starts up his own investigation. His efforts lead them to a cult hideaway where Maggie describes Lucy to cult member Rainbow.
“…thin, had hair to her waist.”
“Did she have a mole or birthmark above her lip? And freckles, just a few?” Rainbow asks.
“Yup, both,” says Maggie, excited to have a lead. But the visit proves fruitless when Maggie learns that Lucy left the compound years before and hasn’t been heard from since.
By a mix of her “laser focus as well as expertise,” Maggie, “certified weirdo nerd” in junior high, now master of the form, breaks the mayor’s daughter’s kidnapping case and reveals a surprising culprit.
At times, Maggie’s excessive drinking and use of pharmaceuticals are over the top. But a hard-living female whose one saving grace is her brilliant investigative tactics kept me turning pages. It also left me wondering what became of Maggie’s dear friend, Lucy. Her disappearance is featured in the prologue but left unsatisfyingly unsolved at the end. Unless this was intentional on Sand’s part, and a sequel is in the offing, with the profane and nerdy wordsmith cracking the case. I’d read it.
