Darmok.
A homeless man is murdered and the only one who seems to know anything is another homeless man who speaks only in quotations. The quotations may more or less directly answer questions, but more often they allude to the context of the quotation or to obscure parallels OR to actual events in language which serves to hide rather than reveal meaning. Our rational and straight-forward cop faces a new attack on her well-defined environment.
Shaka, when the walls fell.
The journey through the convolutions of the life of "Brother Erasmus" and the events that brought him to that place in that state of mind and the struggles of Kate and Al to find a point of communication with him drive the novel. From the Kate of A Grave Talent who keeps her private life so private that she uses a different name at work and among her very limited circle of friends, she grows to a point that not only does she invite others to the home she shares with her partner, Lee (for Leonora), she enlists them in the effort to solve the crime.
Another aspect of this book is a view into the world of the homeless that most of us have never seen and, in all probability, never will.
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