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Rating: 
Summary: Sheltered Innocence
Review: Margaret Millar has come full circle in her suspense novel, "Mermaid." What begins as an innocent visit to a lawyer's office, by a young girl, dressed in bobby socks and a school uniform, because she likes the lawyer's looks and because she wants to know how she should go about gaining her "rights", she, being, it seems, not so young but 4 years beyond voting age, ends with the twisted entanglement of everyone else's rights and lives because of her sheltered innocence.Cleo is 22 yrs. old, living with her older brother, age 40, who is her guardian. At home there is also his wife and son from a previous marriage. Cleo is considered "exceptional," a euphemism for "not quite normal" as her view of daily life and reality is a bit askew. Some things she understands (like the needs of animals) but other relationships are more "foggy." Indeed, she has many foggy moments. She goes to a school with other "exceptional" children, one of whom becomes a special friend - fat Danny, who is there for some kind of misdemeanor, and who is cunningly aware of the outside world, and who will eventually be involved in the events as they unfold. Cleo runs away from home after a harsh scolding from her brother after being found in bed with her step-brother, who is immediately banished from the family home. She disappears. The lawyer whom she initially went to, is assigned the duty of finding her, and what follows is a winding and weaving of people - the school principal, a school teacher, his friend, the step-brother, his friends, school mates, their families and the final denouement, which leaves you with the feeling that Margaret Millar believes in retribution and justice, especially for those who shut their eyes to unpleasant realities that face them daily. Neither money, nor goodness (there is little of that in Millar) can save us. Life in posh California. Yes, indeed, as it probably was a few years back.
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