Miracle Creek, by Angie Kim (2019)
This novel is part courtroom drama, part mystery. Pak and Young Yoo and their daughter Mary, are South Korean immigrants. They immigrated to the United States in hopes of providing their teenaged daughter a good education. For visa reasons, Young Yoo and Mary arrived several years before Pak could join them. Once the family is together, they find themselves in rural Virginia in a town called Miracle Creek.
Pak was able to get a license to run a private hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) center. The therapy claimed to provide treatment for a variety of illnesses and conditions, including autism and infertility. The HBOT chamber is a refurbished submarine that can accommodate several patients in one “dive.”
The novel opens with a fire at the facility, in which two of the people chamber were killed, and several others seriously wounded. The mother of the 8-year-old autistic child who died in the fire is the prime suspect. Usually, the mothers would enter the chamber with their children, but on this day, Elizabeth, opted not to participate.
Elizabeth’s demeanor in the courtroom certainly makes her look suspect, and as witnesses testify, her guilt seems clear. But as the trial continues, the author peels back the stories and motives of the Yoos and the other families who were in the chamber on the day of the fire. Each person has his/her own reasons for keeping secrets.
This was a quick read as a novel, but ultimately, I was left unsatisfied. There were still too many issues that were raised in the book, that were left unanswered. As Chekhov noted: If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.
Read: February 2, 2021
3 Stars
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