Miracle Creek
Author: Angie Kim
Publisher: Picador
Date of Publication: April 7, 2020
Pages: 384
This is a marvelous novel which succeeds on many levels. First, it is a top-notch "who-done-it". Four patients and parents of two of those are in a sealed multi-place hyperbaric chamber when a fire erupts. One pediatric patient and another child's parent are killed in the mishap. This event is told in the opening of the book and the background is all revealed through the murder trial of the dead child's mother. Did she intentionally set the fire as all of the circumstantial evidence would suggest? Could the perpetrator be any one of a number of other characters? The reader has suspicions, but they change multiple times as details are elicited during the trial and through flashbacks. The plot of Mystery Creek is a variation of the "Closed Circle Mystery" genre: a limited number of suspects are presented, all with motive, opportunity, and means to have committed the crime. The reader needs to sort through this increasingly tangled story to try to figure out what exactly happened.
Miracle Creek is also a series of extremely well drawn character studies. The operators of the unlicensed hyperbaric chamber are a Korean immigrant family (the Yoos): a father (the chamber operator), his wife, and their teen-aged daughter. The author calls on her own immigrant experience to portray these folks as flawed but tremendously sympathetic characters. The other patients include a medical doctor with infertility, a child with cerebral palsy, and two children with different degrees of autism (and their mothers). The prosecutor and the defense attorney are central to the story also, even as minor characters.
This book also succeeds in painting a very realistic picture of the immigrant experience in America. These folks come to America looking for opportunity and often find exploitation, misunderstanding, and frustration instead. The Kims fight prejudice, racial and ethnic stereotyping, and bullying in their workplace and in school. It is not an easy path and the author questions the risk vs. benefit ratio in deciding to abandon their native country.
Finally, the author does a fantastic job of describing the frustrations and difficulties of parenting a special-needs child. The parents' whole lives are consumed with therapy appointments, treatments and hands-on control of these very needy children. The tasks take their toll, often causing relationships to splinter. Is all of this turmoil, self-doubt, and aggravation enough to make a mother want to kill her own child? Would she really strike a match and intentionally cause a fatal chamber explosion? That is the question the court is trying to answer and the book addresses so adroitly.
This book intrigued me from the very start. I am a retired hyperbaric physician and have experience as a hyperbaric facility accreditation surveyor, so I am very familiar with the risks of hyperbaric therapy, especially in unlicensed, non-hospital affiliated settings. The author certainly did her homework in that regard and understands the issues quite well.
This is a very well written book which is entertaining as well as informative. It is very deserving of the Edgar Award it was awarded in April of 2020 as the Best First Mystery Novel.
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