Past Crimes

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

In Past Crimes, Matas effectively combines the genres of crime
literature and time-slip fantasy while ultimately leaving her
high-school audience to ponder some metaphysical questions.

Following her police-officer husband’s murder in San Diego, Ros
Green, now 19, had returned with her infant son, Nate, to her parents’
home in Palm Springs. As the novel begins, Ros has been hospitalized
following a shooting in which she was wounded, but another person, Dr.
Graham, was killed. Initially, Ros believes Dr. Graham to have been the
intended target because he had performed abortions at a family planning
clinic where Ros volunteered. However, a series of events, beginning
with Ros receiving a note saying “You are next,” followed by her
absent parents’ house being torched, her friend’s car being
fire-bombed, and finally Nate being kidnapped, confirm for Ros that she
had always been the intended victim.

Matas presents a large cadre of suspects ranging from the doctor’s
jealous wife to zealous anti-abortion Christians. However, the
killer’s identity and the reasons for the attempts on Ros’s life
reside in a series of dreams Ros has wherein she is taken back to the
time of the Spanish Inquisition she finds herself being tortured. To
prevent the excruciating pain from continuing, she must reveal the
identities of Jews, something she ultimately does by just blurting out
names, including that of her best friend. Through these dreams, Matas
introduces the idea of reincarnation and the opportunities each new life
presents to atone for “past crimes.” Recommended.