Long Bright River by Liz Moore review startlingly fresh

In 2009, Liz Moore accompanied photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge to the Philadephia neighbourhood of Kensington, where he was documenting the human cost of the area’s high rate of opioid addiction. The interviews and sketches she began to write on the subject laid the foundations of her fourth book, Long Bright River, a novel 10 years in the making that bears witness to the author’s extensive research and first-hand experience of the lives of those who fall through the cracks.

Long Bright River is being marketed as a thriller, but, as with the best crime novels, its scope defies the constraints of genre; it is family drama, history and social commentary wrapped up in the compelling format of a police procedural. There’s a serial killer targeting young sex workers in Kensington; there’s police corruption and a good but unorthodox cop defying orders to pursue justice. But although the tropes are familiar to the point of cliche, the result feels startlingly fresh.

The novel opens with a list of names. Halfway down, in parenthesis, a partial explanation: “(one day apart, victims of the same bad batch, someone said)”. We realise these are deaths from overdoses. At the end, the list becomes personal: “Our former teacher Mr Paules… Our cousin Shannon. Our father. Our mother.”

Michaela “Mickey” Fitzpatrick is a patrol officer in Kensington, called out to the discovery of a woman’s body in a derelict part of the neighbourhood, a probable overdose. These corpses barely warrant police attention: “This year alone the city is on track for 1,200, and the vast majority of those are in our district.” But Mickey has reason to be alarmed by every such call; her younger sister Kacey, a heroin addict and sex worker, has been missing for over a month. The dead woman is not Kacey, but Mickey is the only one to notice signs that she was murdered. When similar victims begin to appear in the area, Mickey decides – though it’s outside her remit – to pursue the mystery of her sister’s disappearance and the murders, fearing the two may be linked. What she uncovers puts her in conflict with her superiors, her closest friend and former police partner Truman, and Simon, the estranged father of her four-year-old son.

“I have tried, to the best of my ability, to live my life in an honourable way,” Mickey says. At the heart of the novel are questions about moral responsibility, and what it means to be honourable. It’s also an exploration of the vulnerability and strength of women. Moore – who volunteers with women’s groups in the area – has created a memorable portrait of the devastation created by poverty and addiction, and the compassion and courage that can rise to meet it.

Long Bright River by Liz Moore is published by Hutchinson (£12.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15

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