Sassy, whip-smart legal aid attorney Miranda Quinn is back for a third installment* in Olmsted’s Miranda Fights which finds her juggling family life with counseling at-risk, troubled young women, some of whom seem to be disappearing…
Meanwhile, Lennon Gallagher, the daughter of an old, estranged high-school friend, turns to her for help with a minor misdemeanor. Miranda is intrigued and does not hesitate to represent her. When Lennon expresses fear for her friends who keep vanishing, Miranda realizes there might be a connection with her missing girls…
For those readers familiar with Miranda Quinn, this is another immensely readable, polished, and engrossing outing. It also equally stands alone. There is a warm, reassuring familiarity without predictability or complacency to Miranda. Olmsted inhabits her world effortlessly and, within lines of the first chapter, ensures the reader does too.
Olmsted not only serves up the main, gripping sex trafficking storyline but also enjoyably intriguing tangents involving Lennon, life-changing relocations, and low-level domestic drama, all in true Miranda style.
The short chapters, chatty tone, and fast pace keep the pages turning. Olmsted packs an awful lot into Miranda Fights. However, the missing girls drive the novel, and Olmsted handles this dark theme with single-minded plotting and a lightness of touch.
The reader already has some awareness of what’s happening with the girls through a creepy, unsettling prologue, and with the introduction of Lennon, pieces begin to fall horribly into place.
Lennon becomes central to Miranda Fights, not just because of the trafficking plot. She begins the novel as a fairly prototypical eighteen-year-old, albeit with a harrowing backstory. However, chapter by chapter, Olmsted gives her more emotional depth and maturity, cleverly utilizing her to propel several storylines in the book.
Charlene, Lennon’s mother, is by contrast a touch one-dimensional and possibly underused, although the reader suspects she may become central to a further Miranda installment.
Charlene does garner a smidgen of sympathy; Miranda’s life, even when navigating challenging times and personal decisions, can appear a bit too wonderful and picture-perfect. Nonetheless, both women are living by the consequences of their choices. The decision that Lennon makes toward the end of the novel is understandable and correct within context.
Once the reader is swiftly re-acquainted with Miranda, Olmsted interjects Lennon’s third-person perspective. However, Miranda’s point of view is presented in the first person. It’s a skillful switch, always subtly foregrounding Miranda in the reader’s mind with her immediate, candid responses and reactions to events.
Jordan Myers, regional manager, and Alan Newton, “den mother” of one of the state-run homes the missing girls had been living in, are suitably unpleasant, especially creepy Myers. Overall, the supporting cast of Miranda Fights, many of whom are known from the earlier books, plays their parts convincingly and with continuity.
Olmsted perhaps throws too much in the mix regarding Miranda’s family life. As the novel nears its conclusion, a couple of the chapters are possibly superfluous but were, nonetheless, pleasurable to read. They also make the twist that Olmsted grenade-lobs into the plot right before the end, even more unexpected although, with hindsight, delicate clues were given.
Engaging, entertaining, and involving, Miranda Fights is another Miranda Quinn winner from Olmsted. Highly recommended.
*Click here for my review of Miranda Nights (A Miranda Quinn Legal Twist Book 2).
