Elita

"This absorbing midcentury American take on Nordic noir opens with two men apprehending a seemingly feral girl on Elita, a tiny island in the Puget Sound that for years has been home only to a federal men’s prison. Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum elevates the moody mystery with her choice of protagonist – Bernadette Baston, a scholar of child development and single mother, who consults on the girl’s case. Bernadette is fascinated by the child’s fierce independence in a world that sets stark constraints on the lives of women and girls. She must fight for her own independence in order to uncover the girl’s origins in this slow-burn study of insular communities and working motherhood."