ALL THE SECRETS OF THE WORLD

Roxanne Hernandez delivers this multilayered thriller in a dispassionate voice as she shifts smoothly between 13-year-old Lorena's two lives. One is her hardscrabble existence in Sacramento, where she lives with her immigrant mother and brother, and the other is the privileged life she is introduced to by the Stallworths, who reside in Sacramento's suburbs. Hernandez gives Lorena's friend Jenny Stallworth a snarky, self-assured tone of privilege, while Jenny's mother speaks with sugary insincerity. When the Stallworth patriarch disappears, Lorena's voice expresses frustration as she tries to get the police to look for evidence that exonerates her brother, the prime suspect. This powerful story of how preconceived ideas can undermine justice will stay with the listener long after the last word. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2022]