{"id":7237,"date":"2018-05-16T07:35:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T11:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7237"},"modified":"2018-05-16T07:35:40","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T11:35:40","slug":"in-strangers-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7237","title":{"rendered":"***In Strangers’ Houses"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cleaner\"

photo: ePi.Longo, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Elizabeth Mundy \u2013 Highly visible as an \u201cissue\u201d and yet highly invisible as individuals, East European immigrants and best friends Lena Szarka and her friend Timea Dubay clean London\u2019s houses in the daytime and its offices at night. Although the work offers them more upward mobility than would be possible back in Hungary, working in a foreign country isn\u2019t easy. The language is difficult, the systems and culture are unfamiliar, and nasty anti-immigrant sentiment lies just below the surface.<\/p>\n

Most of Elizabeth Mundy\u2019s debut murder mystery is told from Lena\u2019s point of view, enabling a close-up perspective on the complexities and hazards of immigrant life on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. As house cleaners, she and Timea work in others\u2019 private spaces, see their most intimate secrets, and observe their habits. It is an act of faith that they can do so safely and will be paid for their efforts. Mundy has created engaging characters facing believable challenges. It\u2019s no surprise this is intended as the first of a series featuring the warm-hearted Lena.<\/p>\n

Lena is a few years older than Timea and coping fairly well. But Timea, a single mother, is struggling. She\u2019s never told anyone who her son Laszlo\u2019s father is\u2014and though it was hard to leave the boy behind, she expects this sojourn abroad to jump-start a better life for them both. The women\u2019s childhood friend Istvan, a handsome television actor, also lives in London. Istvan is married to a well-off woman who has helped his career, and he\u2019s achieved a lifestyle starkly contrasting with that of the women, one that lets him concentrate on what is most important, himself.<\/p>\n

Early in the story, Lena begins to worry about Timea. Her friend is increasingly unhappy and confesses that the problem is someone she must get away from. When Timea doesn\u2019t come home one night, Lena\u2019s worry blossoms into fear, and when she doesn\u2019t return by the next day, Lena goes to the police. They are disinclined to take the disappearance seriously. Experience tells them Timea is most likely with a boyfriend and will turn up.<\/p>\n

When Timea\u2019s body does turn up, floating in Regent\u2019s Canal, the police take a brief interest, but conclude the death was suicide. They hold this opinion even more strongly once the autopsy reveals Timea was three months pregnant. Mundy rounds out her characters in a series of flashbacks to Lena, Timea, and Istvan as children, a history that convinces Lena that Timea would never kill herself. In true amateur detective form, Mundy gives Lena no choice but to embark on the investigation herself.<\/p>\n

Mundy shows a somewhat different facet of London than we usually see and makes Lena\u2019s situation fresh and interesting. The writing is solid, though the police detective sometimes sounds as if he\u2019s memorized a criminology textbook. By contrast, Lena\u2019s slight awkwardness in expression is part of the book\u2019s charm. After all, English is a bit of a struggle for her, but she sticks with it bravely, just as she does the pursuit of Timea\u2019s killer. A quick read without a lot of graphic violence or sex. I\u2019ll be interested to see more from Mundy.
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elizabeth Mundy \u2013 Highly visible as an \u201cissue\u201d and yet highly invisible as individuals, East European immigrants and best friends Lena Szarka and her friend Timea Dubay clean London\u2019s houses in the daytime and its offices at night. Although … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"***In Strangers' Houses - cleaning houses in London shows a young woman a lot about her clients; did one of them kill her when she learned too much? Debut crime thriller from Elizabeth Mundy.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,40,126],"tags":[1310,463,1311,333,678,99],"class_list":["post-7237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-fiction","category-reading-2","tag-elizabeth-mundy","tag-immigrant","tag-in-strangers-houses","tag-london","tag-murder","tag-urban-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1SJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7239,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7237\/revisions\/7239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}