With Child (1996)

ISBN 978-0-553-57458-6 | UK (June 08) 978-1-84722-006-6

Nominated for the Edgar and Orange awards

The serving was over and the nonresident recipients were reluctantly scattering for their beds in doorways and Dumpsters when Kate blew into the Haight-Love Shelter. Grace Kokumah stood with her hands in the pockets of her sagging purple cardigan and watched without expression as Kate came to a halt next to the thin and already-yellowing Christmas tree and dropped her burden with a clatter before beginning to strip off the astronaut helmet, the dripping and voluminous orange neck-to-ankle waterproof jumpsuit, and the padded gloves. When Kate had popped open the snaps on her leather jacket and run a hand through her brief hair, the woman shook her beads.

“The city’s finest, a vision to behold.”
“Do you want the buckets or don’t you?” Kate growled.
“Where did you find them?” She studied the waist-high stack, no doubt wondering instead how Kate had managed to transport them without being lifted up, cycle and all, by their wind resistance and dropped into the San Francisco Bay.

“Stole them from the morgue; they use them for the scraps. Joke! That was a joke!” she said to the horrified young people at Grace’s back. “Macabre cop humor, you’ve heard of that. The cleaners buy soap in them, nothing worse than that. Do you have anything to eat? I’m starving.”

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What they say

“Detective Kate Martinelli’s personal and professional lives are in upheaval. Her longtime female lover has moved out; Kate is currently persona non grata with her colleagues; and Jules Cameron, the stepdaughter of Kate’s partner, Al, wants Kate to find a homeless boy who seems to have disappeared into thin air. Determined to take her mind off her troubles, Kate sets off to find the boy, only to be caught in an ambush that results in a gun battle and, for Kate, a disabling blow to the head.” (Booklist)

Inspector Kate Martinelli agrees to help [medievalist Jani Cameron’s] preteen daughter Jules track down Dio, a homeless boy she met in a San Francisco park over the summer. [When Jules disappears,] Kate searches frantically for some clue about her fate that will allow her closure and mourning; and for that clue she can only turn, logically enough, to Dio—in a beautifully nuanced transformation of the traditional roles of detective, assistant, and victim. (Kirkus, starred review)