Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite

Olivia Waite is a genius. No wonder this was Hugo-Award nominated. In Nobody’s Baby, we return to world of Murder by Memory. This time, though, our mystery isn’t a death: but a life! An unplanned (and supposedly impossible) baby appeared at the doorstep of Dorothy’s nephew Ruthie. What are they to do but take it in? It is quite easy to identify who the mother is (DNA!), but what if she awakes not remembering having the child? And why are her memory files so corrupted? How did she pass away?

I rather liked this dive into motherhood/fatherhood/parenthood. A good parent chooses their child. I enjoyed the framing of the mother “flipping the coin”: originally, she decided to have a baby, but when her memory restarted, would she do the same? Given the exact same circumstances, would we make the same exact choices twice? Are we probabilistic or deterministic? I had never thought of this before. I typically think of myself as a deterministic person: given the same circumstances, I would always make the same choice every time. Maybe I wouldn’t. In the moment of a decision, my outcome/thought process teeters on an edge. Maybe humans are more probabilistic. This makes me even more grateful for the choices I’ve made to get me where I am.

Waite fills Nobody’s Baby with all the classic elements of a noir: a femme fatale, mysterious parentage, a vengeful son, and sexually repressed lesbians (yes they kiss). It’s a lovely slice of mystery. I can’t wait for the next!