Second Glance

Second Glance is a fiction novel written by American author Jodi Picoult.

Plot summary

Second Glance follows several characters throughout the book, in Jodi Picoult's typical fashion, flashing back and forth many decades to piece together the story. It is set in Comtosook, VT.

The main plot is that an Abenaki land space is planned to be turned into a shopping mall. However, if the Abenaki can prove that an ancestor was buried on the land, it cannot be built on.

Ross Wakeman comes to town to stay with his sister. He is the survivor of many varied suicide attempts, which began after his fiancee Aimee was killed in a car accident years ago. He became a ghost hunter hoping to someday encounter her spirit. Comtosook begins to experience many strange phenomena as the result of the threat of development on the sacred land, including water that refuses to boil.

With the help of a local detective, Ross uncovers a decades-old murder mystery that helps to prove that the land in question truly is a Native American-burial ground, and in turn is able to save the land from development. But the Native American that was buried there surprises everyone and makes Ross think with parts of his brain that he has not paid attention to in years.

Characters

• Ross Wakeman, male protagonist. He is a ghost hunter who moves around constantly, now living with his sister.
• Shelby Wakeman, Ross's sister, is the divorced mother of Ethan. She is a good librarian with a passion for unusual, complicated words.
• Ethan Wakeman, Ross's nine-year-old nephew and Shelby's son. He suffers from Xeroderma pigmentosum.
• Cecelia Pike/Lia Beaumont, a suicidal woman featured in both the present-day and flashbacks and whose death is crucial to the plot.
• Eli Rochert, a half-Abenaki police officer whose wife left him. After seeing Shelby in his dreams for weeks, he finds her and falls in love with her. He is working with Ross to solve the murder mystery.
• Meredith Oliver, a woman who works doing preimplantation genetic diagnosis. She is divorced and has no luck with men. Being a working parent, she relies on her grandmother, Ruby, to take care of her daughter.
• Lucy Oliver, the eight-year-old daughter of Meredith. She is intelligent for her age, but she sees various things that nobody else can, like ghosts.
• Spencer Pike, Cecelia's husband, works as a eugenist in the flashbacks. In the present-day, he lives at the Comtosook nursing home.
• John Delacour, aka Gray Wolf aka Az Thompson, an Abenaki man, suspected to be Cecelia Pike's murderer; a 102-year-old Abenaki man, the last surviving member of his tribe.^[1]

References

• Dooley, Susan Ghost World, Review, Washington Post, May 18, 2003 T.13
• Vidmos, Robin, Eugenics plot enlivens "Second Glance" Review, The Denver Post, April 20, 2003; Page EE-02
• Kayle, Hillary S., Interview with Jodi Picoult Tackling Big Issues, Publishers Weekly, June 11, 2004
• Gershenbaum, Barbara Lipkien SECOND GLANCE Review, Bookreporter.com,