a headstrong girl with a heart of gold. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, only child of a brilliant but frustrated man who ended up an alcoholic, and a passive, slightly bitter woman unwilling to deal with the situation she found herself in. Lucy's relationship with her father has colored her dealings with men, making her sympathetic to eccentrics, alcohol and drug abusers, and crazy cowboys on one hand, and impatient and unforgiving of these same types on the other. This paradox partly embodies who she is, and she does not apologize for it. She goes after them, and when they let her down she walks away. She has been living on her own for most of her adult life, and has managed to carve a niche for herself in the shark-infested waters of New York City, where she moved more or less on a lark in her early twenties. She's tough but sweet at heart, and always ready with a quick retort and a ready laugh. She wears stylish glasses and constantly changes her hair although she is not particularly vain. She likes fashion but hates the fact that she cares about it. She's smart, sassy, and prone to bitchiness under stress. She's also fiercely protective of her friends and her privacy, and does not suffer fools at all. In fact she delights in exposing pomposity and pretension whenever a chance arises. And yet she is also vulnerable, feminine, and willing to use those wiles to advance whatever cause she's involved in.
After the usual decade of partying, playing, and misbehaving, by the time we meet her Lucy has worked her way into a career as a writer and photographer. She writes well enough to survive but not well enough to have “made it” with the kind of serious investigative journalism she most admires. Likewise, she's a good photographer but not good enough, or not ambitious enough, to have conquered the New York photo world. But then again, she knows half the people that have, and knows her work holds up to theirs. She just didn't play the game in quite the right way, and she knows that too.
She's a hardworking girl in a semi-glamorous scene, debunking the glamorous part of it even as she savors every minute of it. She loves to travel, and has arranged her career to make travel a part of it. And her travels enhance the stories. She's politically leftist, but her positions emerge out of a natural affinity for the poor and dispossessed, those who suffer at the hands of the state and the indifferent rich. She knows the world is cruel, but she loves it just the same. In many ways, in spite of the cool eye she often casts on life and death, she is at heart a romantic and an idealist, for in every one of the books, her small actions help change the world in small ways. And she holds out for that one true love.
“Travel writer Henderson's series kickoff shows promise, a terrific premise, great local color and an appealing cast...”
— Kirkus,
December 15, 2005