No One Tells Everything

Two lost souls establish a tenuous bond in Meadows's intriguing tale of an aimless copy editor and a hapless murder suspect. When a female student at Emeryville, a small Long Island, N.Y., college, goes missing, a would-be suitor and fellow student, Charles Raggatt, is arrested and confesses to her murder. The sensational crime strikes a chord with Grace, a copy editor at a weekly Long Island news magazine, who becomes obsessed with the case, especially after she discovers that Charles, like she, is originally from a Cleveland suburb. Though Grace is convinced that there's more to the story than the public is being told, alternating points of view leave the reader in little doubt about Charles's guilt. Meadows (Calling Out ) artfully sketches the growing relationship between the pair that starts with letters, then phone calls and a visit. There's a moving irony in this forging of a potentially redemptive friendship in the aftermath of a brutal murder. (June)