You Should Have Known

Retired nurse Frannie Greene, the narrator of Keller’s nicely observed if downbeat debut, reluctantly bows to her grown children’s urging to move into Ridgewood, an assisted living facility in a Chicago suburb. She’s slow to make friends until she meets Katherine Kearney, who’s everything Frannie is not. When Frannie discovers that Katherine’s husband, fellow Ridgewood resident Nathaniel, is the corrupt judge who freed the killer of her granddaughter, her unresolved grief turns into a desire for revenge. When Frannie spies an unattended medication cart, she uses her medical expertise to tamper with Nathaniel’s medication. The next day, someone other than the judge is found dead. Suspicion eventually points toward a Ridgewood employee whom Frannie knows to be innocent. The remorseful Frannie strives to make things right—and in the process uncovers the real culprit. Some readers will be more engaged than others with the author’s unsparing depiction of the myriad humiliations inflicted on the old by both institutional caregivers and well-meaning children, but the carefully crafted plot balances Keller’s joyless depiction of old age. This isn’t for those looking for a puzzling whodunit. (Apr.)