An Idaho-raised lesbian recommended this to another Idaho-raised lesbian on Facebook. I don't know if the original recipient of the rec will ever read it, but I rushed out and interlibrary loaned a copy. Our heroine, Bil Hardy (like a Hardy boy?), is the youngest of five (three? of whom are adopted, and two of whom are Black, including a sister who is a librarian).
"I'll remind you that Sarah is an information specialist."
"She's a librarian, Bil. I don't see how a librarians going to help you."
"You obviously don't know anything about librarians," I replied. "You know the Myers-Briggs personality test? According to Sarah, the most common personality type among librarians is also the most common among CIA agents."
lol
Bil is out-ish, as in the town queers know she's one of them, but she's never told her parents, even though they're pretty cool. Maybe because they're pretty cool. Bil doesn't want her already conspicuous mom aggressively PFLAGging.
She's a typical Idaho woman, a cross between Ma Ingalls and Norman Schwartzkopf. If she were caught in a bear trap, she'd chew her own leg off, drag the bloody stump home, and reattach it with a staple gun.
This is a whodunnit, but Wil isn't your typical amateur sleuth, who's nosy or a busybody or can't help themself. She's just helping the girl she's had a crush on since both were young. Though it was published in 2006, the book takes place in the 1990s. I feel like writers prefer to ignore cell phones if they can.
I appreciate Wil/Opyr's observations, like,
I've learned about petty criminals--they're a bunch of cock-eyed optimists. The cops were bound to catch Francie drinking, she was bound to point the finger at Sam, and he was bound to go back to jail. Somehow, the inevitability of this chain of events utterly escaped him. He thought every day was his lucky day.
And, her librarian sister again,
I thought for a moment. "Did you get a raise when they made you network coordinator?"
"Yeah," she laughed. "I can take two extra pencils a month from the supply cabinet."
I lol because it's true. Wil has two other sisters, a doctor and a lawyer, and she finds the librarian the most useful. I love that librarians are a lesbian sex symbol, and because they actually know what we do, not because of the glasses and bun thing. Later in the book someone from the Idaho Library Association is called to speak against an anti-gay proposition, and there is also a reference to the ALA Bill of Rights.
Opyr's bio says that she co-hosts a radio show called the Auntie Establishment and that she will never write her dissertation. Live your best life, girlfriend!