NOBODY'S CHILD

N.Y.: Fawcett, 1995. 1st ed. Uncorrected page proofs, fine in decorated wraps. Across the glorious San Francisco Bay lies Berkeley, California, as famous for students and activism as it is for the charm of the town itself. But the complexities and troubles of the big city have made their home here and no one feels safe anymore. A decomposing body buried in an empty lot has been dug up by a construction company, and Jeri Howard's demanding, imperious client, Naomi Smith, thinks the victim could be her daughter, Maureen, who ran away from her comfortable home two years ago. Jeri dislikes her client, but as a survivor of the mother-daughter wars herself, she is determined to discover the identity of the dead woman and how she was killed. What worries her just as much, though, is the missing child Maureen was last seen carrying--both of them sick, broke, and sleeping among the hopeless and homeless in the threatening shadows of Peoples Park. Posing as a homeless person, Jeri probes the darkening heart of the once-beautiful city, peering behind the lace curtains of middle-class respectability to find out why Maureen ran from home and how she ended up on the streets. In her desperate search to save a child that nobody seems to want, Jeri hits a wall of suburban silence and urban distress.. First Edition. Pictorial Wrappers. Near Fine/No Jacket. Uncorrected Proof.