The Four Ms. Bradwells

Four friends confront a secret from their past in Clayton's disjointed follow-up to The Wednesday Sisters. Thirty years ago, Laney, Mia, Betts, and Ginger were roommates and best friends in law school. Collectively nicknamed the Ms. Bradwells by a professor (after a woman who fought to be admitted to the bar in 1873), their relationship has weathered marriage, divorce, children, and death, but when Betts's Supreme Court nomination is threatened by questions about the death of a young man at a party they attended decades ago, the women retreat to the scene of the crime—Ginger's mother's summer house—to untangle the past. But this clunky novel is less about that mystery—its poky reveal stretches the limits of human patience—and more about the women's histories and careers, and the complexities of their friendships and families. Clayton finds some traction in discussing what it means to be a woman in both public and private life, but lack of individuated voices (poetry-quoting Ginger is the only unique one among the four) and unruly swerves between past and present make following the story more work than it should be. (Apr.)