All That Is Secret
⭐⭐⭐
All That is Secret is a murder mystery set in Denver, CO during the 1920s. I’ve been getting increasingly interested in local history, so this seemed like a fun way to ease into the topic. Patricia Raybon didn’t pull any punches in her portrayal of the city. As much as Denver tries not to acknowledge it, we had a huge and active chapter of the KKK. The challenges Annalee faces specifically due to her race and gender almost feel like a subplot of their own - she can’t just react to anything, every choice she makes has to be carefully filtered through the lens of how society might respond to her actions before she can go for it.
Because of how well done the multilayered impacts of the different -isms were, I was surprised by the narrative choice for Annalee’s detective methods - she spends most of the book as a bull in a china shop, marching into various places with almost no subtlety. The mystery does get solved, but almost despite her actions instead of because of them. I’m not familiar enough with the genre to know if that’s a standard trope for a newbie detective, but I didn’t love it.
One other aspect of the book I simultaneously found very impressive and hard to connect with. Annalee is a Professor at a Bible college who has recently hit a crisis of faith, and she spends a lot of the book grappling with her relationship to God. I think if I was religious or if I’d at least been raised in a church this is something I would have loved, but instead it was just a large chunk of the book I struggled to relate to.
I paired All That Is Secret with a Whiskey Highball. Both are fairly refreshing, but I’m not the target market for either. They maintain enough deeper and more complex notes to stay interesting but stay light enough to be a fun drink or read on a summer evening. I don’t think I’ll come back to reread this first installation of the Annalee Spain Mysteries but I may pick up the second once it comes out to see how the series develops from here.
Whiskey Highball:
2 oz whiskey
4 oz club soda
Fill a tall and narrow glass with large ice cubes, add whiskey first then club soda. Enjoy!
