Nobody’s Secret by Michaela MacColl

I requested our library (er, one of them) purchase Nobody’s Secret by Michaela MacColl after reading Sherry’s review of it.  I’m not really sure yet how I feel about famous authors or literary characters being co-opted to star in their own novels, but this murder mystery with none other than Emily Dickinson as the sleuth hit me just right.  Honestly, I don’t have the attention span or the memory to really be a good reader of mysteries, so most of the time some of the finer details escape me.  This mystery, though, really isn’t too complicated, and it’s really the characters that shine in it, anyway.  MacColl gets Dickinson’s voice right, at least by estimation, and really, that isn’t too hard to do since she uses lines and turns-of-phrases from Dickinson’s own poetry.  Each chapter is entitled with a line from one of her poems, and we see her interest in botany and nature and how it influenced her poetry.  All of this results in a novel heavy on characterization.  There’s a hint of romance in this one, as the “Mr. Nobody” a fifteen year old Emily meets is quite the dashing young man, but unfortunately he ends up floating face-down in the Dickinson pond.  This is the type of story I would’ve enjoyed as a teen, and though I’m not too familiar with teens’ reading preferences nowadays, I would think those with a literary bent or a taste for mystery would find this one enjoyable.  I’ll be interested to see if this well-written tale gets a nod from the Cybils first-round panelists.  I think it might not be edgy enough to make it noteworthy to the committee, but we shall see.  (Chronicle, 2013)