"An Unexplained Death" by Mikita Brottman

An audio book.

D (male) and she (a literature teacher) live in a Baltimore appartment block that used to be the Belvedere hotel. They've been together 17 years. She worries that people don't notice her. At times she feels that she's "missing".

A man, Rey, died falling from the roof in 2006. She spends a decade researching the incident. She's interested in True Crime. She relates many case histories, especially Belvedere-related. She's not morbid - she sees herself as an aesthete. She investigates -

• The Hotel - Hannah Arandt, Barthes and Derrida had stayed in the hotel. Hotels sometimes label their 13th floor "12a", "Magnolia", or have offices there.
• Missing people - Rey was reported as missing for days. We get some stats about what type of people go missing, and the chances of them returning. What kind of posters are put up? What pleas are made?
• Suicides - Hotel managers are trained to deal with them. The worst season is spring. "Jumpers" are less likely to have a history of mental illness. Self-poisoning is more a woman's method. Various poisons go in and out of fashion.
• Rey Rivera - Tall, happy, married. Nearly got into the Olympic water-polo team. Moved from California to work for an organisation, Agora, that produced newsletters of investment tips. He was a good writer and was writing a screenplay. Agora has been entangled in various legal actions. Ray was only freelancing for them by the time he died. The police act strangely.

She contacts Rey's family and friends. She contacts the police (after they've retired and they're more talkative), she reads conspiracy forums. There are suspicious details. She's repeatedly told not to pry - it's dangerous. His wife Alison has returned to Califonia and is expecting her 2nd child. She comes to the hotel to take videos for a film. After a decade, begins to doubt basic details. He fell through a flat roof. Where was the hole? Perhaps she got the location wrong - Alison and her disagree. The location matters because it helps determine whether he was pushed or not. But maybe he was walking on the roof and fell through?

I began listening to it assuming it was a novel. Towards the end, someone calls the main character "Makita"

Other reviews

• Kirkus reviews (The apparent suicide of a stranger becomes both the subject of an author’s true-crime investigation and the catalyst for her intimate memoir)
• Paul LaRosa