Somebody Else

by Reggie Nadelson

'You were some dish,' says Betsy Thornhill's boyfriend seeing an old photograph of her. A casual remark, but Betsy a fifty-year-old American living in London, finds herself looking in the mirror. Conscious, for the first time in her life, of age. A food photographer, she sees the implicit rot not just in the fruit and cheese and lobsters she takes pictures of, but in her own flesh. She goes in for a 'little work' on her face and comes out looking marvelous. Younger by fifteen years. Younger than she could have imagined. License to start over. She goes back to New York where she has not lived for thirty years, to a city traumatized by the aftermath of September 11, its own flesh ripped up. A few days after she arrives, Betsy is accused of murder. She looks at the police sketch. 'It isn't me,' she says. 'It's someone younger.' 'Look in the mirror,' says the cop. Betsy is trapped by her own face. This begins a Hitchockian tale of mistaken identity, a gripping tale of food, death and sex, of youth and age. If I'm thirty-five, who am I, Betsy wonders? What are the markers in my life? Where was I when JFK was shot? As she searches for the real killer in a city drowning in the worst snowstorm in years, she stumbles through her own past which leads her to a terrifying, heartbreaking conclusion.

Hardcover

Published March 17, 2003

About the author

Reggie Nadelson is a New Yorker who also makes her home in London. She is a journalist and documentary film-maker. She is the author of the critically acclaimed series featuring Artie Cohen, Moscow-born New Yorker and the first great post-Cold War cop.

Series:
* Artie Cohen

Reviews

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting murder story which is much more about a mother and daughter relationship, and the relationship we all have with our own face.