Review of "Little Voices"

With her debut novel “Little Voices,” Vanessa Lillie has arrived on the American literary scene with a flash of brilliance. Aficionados of mystery, thriller and horror will savor this intricately plotted page-turner that builds to a stunning denouement.

No word of a lie: I literally jumped when I reached the reveal. This was no cheesy deus ex machina, but rather a breathtaking and logical, if unanticipated, close to this treasure of a book.

Lovers of good fiction in general also will appreciate “Little Voices” — Rhode Islanders especially. Lillie, who grew up in Oklahoma and spent several years in Washington, D.C., before moving to Providence in 2011, sets her debut in the Ocean State, with locations including Newport, Jamestown and the capital city. Her characters’ Rhode Island accents, the insider politics and corrupt politicians, the lingering stench of the Mob, the cops, the bars and restaurants, the East Side neighborhoods, the local media — Lillie has it all down, brilliantly.

“Little Voices” opens with protagonist Devon Burges, a lawyer and investigator with a checkered past (like most of Lillie’s characters), going into bloody, premature labor as she is rushed by ambulance to Women & Infants Hospital. As The Journal’s health writer and author of several medical books, I can attest to the gripping accuracy of the scene. It is an accuracy Lillie brings to every chapter, whether the passage involves medicine, forensics, psychology or crime.

At Women & Infants, Burges delivers her baby via C-section and survives, but leaves the hospital in an amnesic postpartum psychosis. In this house-of-mirrors state, she learns of the savage and unsolved murder of her friend Belina Cabrala in Swan Point Cemetery, where Burges met her the morning she went into labor. A seemingly mystical young woman who really is nothing like she seems (except, perhaps, a spectre), Cabrala also was the nanny and illicit lover of another, older friend of Burges whose marriage is rocky and whose business dealings are shady and rockier still — and whom law enforcement with good reason believes is the prime suspect.

The plot builds from there, with Burges’ husband, Jack, who works for the mayor of Providence, seeking to soothe his wife and temper (and also encourage) her quest to find Cabrala’s murderer as one "House of Cards"-like character after another takes the stage.

Lillie’s dialogue is script-tight (think: the best of "NCIS"), her prose suitably spare. But it is the recurring voice in Burges’ head that haunted me. Presented in italics, never more than a few words at a time, it is a voice of self-doubt, self-loathing, betrayal, shame and guilt. Does it result from postpartum psychosis? Is it a real-life voice from a little girl’s horrific childhood?

Sorry, no spoilers. Lillie, who is at work on another novel, indeed has arrived with a flash of brilliance. If “Little Voices” is any indication, she will be no flash in the pan.

Staff Writer G. Wayne Miller’s 17th book, “Kid Number One: A Story of Heart, Soul and Business, Featuring Alan Hassenfeld and Hasbro,” was published on Sept. 24.

Originally published on September 26, 2019, in The Providence Journal.