Sisters of the Road

Pam Nilsen #2

by Barbara Wilson, Barbara Sjoholm

Pam Nilsen is looking for teenage prostitute Trish Margolin and the murderer of Trish's best friend. Her search brings her into contact with the world of teenage prostitutes and runaways on the streets of Seattle and Portland. The author won the Crime Writers' Association Award in 1992.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, LGBT, Lesbian, Crime, Lesbian Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Barbara Wilson is the pen name of author and translator Barbara Sjoholm. Her mysteries, written under the name Barbara Wilson, include two series, one with printer Pam Nilsen (Murder in the Collective) and one with translator-sleuth Cassandra Reilly. Her mysteries include the Lambda-award-winning Gaudi Afternoon, made into a film of the same name. She was a co-founder of Seal Press and in 2020 received the annual Trailblazer Award from the Golden Crown Literary Society for her contributions to lesbian literature. Her books have been published in England and translated into Spanish, Finnish, German, and Japanese.

Reviews

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second novel in the Pam Nilson series gets off to an exciting start when Pam comes across two teenage runaways: Trish and Rosalie, who is seriously hurt. When Rosalie dies in the hospital and Trish disappears, Pam makes it her duty to find her and make sure she is all right, especially when she learns that both girls were into drugs and prostitution. Her search takes her into broken homes and homeless shelters, into conversations with feminist lawyers, social workers, drug dealers, child abusers, abused children, and prostitutes. In other words, Wilson had an agenda and she knows how to use it.

And her agenda this time is child prostitution. How did someone like Trish get into the business in the first place? What makes her stay? And more generally and philosophically, what is feminism’s take on the “oldest profession?” On one hand, Pam hears from a working prostitute,
“What’s the crime if a woman sleeps with a man for money? He gets what he wants sexually and she gets what she wants economically. Why should the state in the guise of public morality intervene?”

But Pam counters with, “Why is the institution of prostitution always seen as something that’s always been there and always will be? It just feeds into the myth that men are these insatiable creatures whose needs have got to be met.”

It’s a fascinating dialogue. Like the BSDM in Kate Allen’s books, Wilson gives us both sides of this hot-potato feminist issue.

Maybe because she doesn’t have enough room in the story and maybe because she just doesn’t know what to do with them, Wilson has two of the main characters from Murder in the Collective—Pam’s twin sister Penny and Pam’s first girlfriend Hadley—leave the city. Penny goes to Nicaragua with her activist boyfriend to help with the coffee harvest while Hadley has moved to Houston to care for her ailing father. So essentially, Pam is alone for the first time in her life, allowing her time to seriously wonder where she fits in the world. Maybe that’s why she is so interested in finding and helping Trish, despite having to neglect her duties at work. In searching for the missing girl, she is searching for something within herself.

Pam is a good character; I like her a lot. But I like her for who she is and how she thinks rather than for her profession—she is not s world traveler and novel translator like Wilson’s other protagonist, Cassandra Reilly; nor is she a police officer, lawyer, doctor, or whatever. She is just Pam.

It is not a flawless book, by any means. We suspect that Pam is going to get into danger, for instance, when she insists on keeping information to herself. And the interviews she has with lawyers and social workers and prostitutes reads like interviews that the author probably had with the same women. So, oddly, it is realistic and homeworky at the same time. But generally a fun (despite the subject matter!), compelling, and instructive read. Sisters of the Road is a novel that might just miss a place on your Top 20 Lesbian Mystery novels, but it is certainly a solid 4.

Note 1: Pam Nilson is the first amateur lesbian detective to appear in a series.

Note 2: I read the second printing of the Seal Press edition of this novel. The Seal Press was founded by Wilson, who later changed her last name to Sjoholm.

Note 3: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.

[Katie Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a realistic, insightful, entertaining mystery

I was very pleasantly surprised at what a great read this was. The writing was terrific, the characters were well fleshed, and it was a real page turner too. I loved the descriptions of Portland and Seattle. Highly recommended!!!!

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars overall.

Pam picks up two young girls who are stranded in the snow and soon finds out one of them is injured; she takes her to the hospital where she dies and the other one runs away. Pam is moved by the plight of the young girl and decides she needs to track her down and help her. Twisted people are found and the climax of the story was shocking to me. Excellent examination of prostitution in the Pacific Northwest and why women are drawn into it. The dialogue occasionally was a little off otherwise I would have given it a 5 star rating. I found it very engaging and the protagonist very likable. Second in a series

[Mean Dyke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barbara Wilson's Pam Nilsen character has been a joy ever since I discovered Murder in the Collective, and I was entirely convinced I was going to love Sisters of the Road just as much as MinC--until the last five pages. The graphic rape in the final act was surprising, brutal, unwelcome, and (far be it for me, the humble reader, to say it but I must), unnecessary. Up until that singular point is been under the impression these books were a romp, a slice of lesbian life, a clever but tamely packaged whodunit. This assault on Pam felt like a betrayal of her, of me, of the entire literary structure I'd assumed to be unshakable and had thus taken for granted.

In the decades since this has been written there's been a lot of good conversation about the way we rely on sexual violence for character growth, particularly and almost entirely when it comes to female characters, and reading this 40 yr old scene through my 2022 eyes, with that lens, was utterly wrenching. Lesbian literature, feminist literature, lesbian feminist literature--was not the place I thought I would be confronted with something so stark and painful.

I love the series, I love the author, and I'll continue to consume her other works with relish--but I'll never reread this book, and this book alone.

[Fanny Aboulker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable and entertaining while discussion serious subject. This one out of the trilogy had a very graphic scene of sexual violence which I thought was a bit too graphic for how the fatremath of it was handled.

[Molly Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little didactic in places and it doesn’t have as much about the print shop collective dynamics that I really liked in the first book. However it is still really interesting, especially in how it deals with sex work and sex work politics within feminism. I was worried it would be kind of carceral based on who the author thanks in her acknowledgments but in fact it’s ultimately very critical of the police and policing as a response to sex work.

Also just an FYI: this book contains a pretty graphic rape scene.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was dated, but then it was written a long time ago so I expected that. The story was good, as was the charicterisation. Some bits were a bit annoying, but all in all I couldn't put it down, and the end did take me by surprise so all in all a worthwhile read.

[Susan “Sam” · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dated & unimaginative

[Clare Grové · Rating 2 out of 5]

W
2021 alphabet of authors

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

So far I'm finding the plot development incredibly unbelievable. Very convenient revelations at just the right moment. I'll withhold more until I get to the end. You never know, it may be so jaw-droppingly good I forget all about the rest.

Well, the end was certainly powerful, but even still it doesn't make up for the clunkiness of the story-telling and prose. It says something about a book when everything - dialogue, internal monologue, and exposition - are all in the same tone and indistinguishable from one another. I hate to hate on this book because I love a mystery and when women's politics are thrown in all the better. Still, Murder in the Collective is much better.

[Jesi · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I actually liked this quite a bit. It more or less combines some things that I enjoy/relate to: sex workers rights (in some instances,) lesbianism, and mystery novels. Can it be a bit contrived? Yes. But I wasn't looking for much in the way of a juicy read, just something to help me fall asleep. Which it kind of failed at that since I kept flipping through pages to try and finish.

It's also rare that I find characters genuinely interesting, even side characters.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this on the barren shelves of the soon-to-be-closed-for-good (or maybe now it is) Oscar Wilde bookstore and picked it up because I wanted to buy something there one last time and because what's not fun about a lesbian spy novel? I found this to be surprisingly good and moving. I must admit, I'm tempted to read "Murder in the Collective" because of the title more than anything else.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Portland, chasing a runaway teen.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sisters of the Road (Pam Nilsen Mystery #2)
by Barbara Wilson

bought 10/23/2016 FBL