A few years ago, king of LA crime writing Michael Connelly recommended Ivy Pochoda’s Wonder Valley, a multi-layered and multiple perspective California tale full of characters that tore at your heart and soul. I was impressed. Like Connelly, New York born and bred Pochoda takes readers into the grit beneath the glamourous So-Cal veneer.
Pochoda followed with These Women, a remarkable mystery about the loves and deaths of LA sex workers, and now brings us Sing Her Down, another ferocious read about violence and women. Florence ‘Florida’ Baum is incarcerated at Arizona women’s prison, and according to her former cellmate ‘Dios’ Sandoval, she isn’t the innocent victim of circumstance she claims to be. Dios embraces the darkness that can also live within women, and wants Florida to admit her true self. After an early release during the pandemic, a deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues, and a female LAPD officer is on their trail while dealing with her own questions about male control and female rage.
Pochoda gives her tale of women on the margins, victims and victimisers, a real frontier feel. Sing Her Down is a compelling novel that traverses stark landscapes: prison, desert, global pandemic, and homeless encampments. Modern life veering towards Mad Max. Powered by sharp prose and insights, this thrilling tale of two indelible women on a collision course is hard to put down and even harder to forget.
Reviewed by Craig Sisterson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street and most recently These Women which was a The New York Times best thriller of 2020.
These Women was a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The Edgar Award, the California Book Award, The Macavity Award, and the International Thriller Writers Award.
Wonder Valley won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and France’s Le Grand Prix de Litterature Americaine.
Visitation Street won the Prix Page America in France. Her books have been widely translated. Her first novel, The Art of Disappearing was published in 2009.
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