Before She Was Helen

This terrific suspense tale from best-selling YA author Cooney has a relatable heroine living anonymously in a South Carolina retirement village. Clemmie has been living under an assumed name for 50-plus years. When she goes to check on a nasty neighbor, she finds a beautiful object and sends photos to her grand-niece and nephew, who promptly post it online—and unwittingly put her in jeopardy. Suddenly she’s the target of a deadly drug dealer, her double identity could be exposed, and her fingerprints are all over a murder scene. Worse, a cold case involving the murder of her long-ago rapist and stalker, a beloved basketball coach at her high school, is being reopened. Must she run away and make a new life again, or can she continue her dull but safe life in Sun City? The details of the identical “villas” and their decidedly nonidentical residents are spot-on, as are observations about how we live now vs. then. Clemmie and the other residents are fully fleshed characters, not a cutesy oldster in the bunch. How each of them, including Clemmie, deal with disruptions in their placid lives is hilarious and familiar.