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Juliet Applebaum is a graduate of Harvard Law and a former federal public defender. She's left the law behind to concentrate on raising her three young children. Sadie, her youngest, is four months old, still breast feeding and her mother's frequent companion on the job. Juliet works with her partner Al and their assistant Chiki, in Al's converted garage, and together they've managed to build a booming private investigations agency. Chiki's cousin has a cellmate at with a serious problem, and he asks Juliet and Al to see if they can't help her. Business is slow, so Juliet flies to San Francisco and drives to Dartmore State Prison to interview their new client, Sandra Longeree. Sandra's story is heartbreaking. She gave birth to a son while incarcerated and surrendered him to foster parents. Now those parents can't be found and Sandra wants to make sure that she'll retain custody of her son when she's released from prison. As things stand, her parental rights will soon terminate if she can't find the child and make her wishes known. Juliet begins her investigation by running down an organization called Lambs of the Lord. LoL takes babies from their incarcerated mothers by promising them good foster care for the kids while the moms are in jail. Somehow, though, the babies and moms are never reunited. Juliet and Al quickly figure out what's going on and put a stop to it. But Sandra's baby wasn't taken by Lambs of Lord and Juliet spends the rest of the book finding out what did happen to him. Waldman walks the tightrope between comic mystery and social commentary with extraordinary grace. Juliet is a very witty woman and it's fun to spend time with her as she goes through the familiar motions of motherhood. Everyone who has ever had a mom, let alone been one, can identify with her harried, haphazard methods of parenting. Sadie's always snuffling around for the breast and filling her diaper at inconvenient times, which makes for a lot of very funny grown up potty humor. Juliet's relationship with her husband is suffering from too many kids and too much exhaustion. Even a new mattress can't fix what's wrong between these two. Who among us hasn't been there? Often this is the stuff of melodrama, but Waldman turns it into flat-out comedy. Against this Berkeley mom sitcom she transposes some very serious commentary about the ways in which women in prison are robbed of their fundamental humanity, even when they give birth. This is a fast-moving, entertaining mystery with well-drawn characters and an engaging protagonist. THE CRADLE ROBBERS will particularly appeal to parents in need of a laugh and those who wonder what life is like for women in prison.
Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, January 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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