It was the summer of 1972 when Spring Hill, a Washington D. suburb, got its first taste of reality. A young boy gets molested and killed in the parking lot of the local shopping mall. Suzanne Berne tells this story through the eyes of nine-year old Marsha in A Crime in the Neighborhood. Just before the murder Marsha's family falls apart. Her father moves out because he gets caught having an affair with his sister-in-law, leaving his wife and three children to manage on their own. Marsha, stunned by her father's abandonment, spends the summer witnessing her mother's desperate attempts to cope, the neighborhood's response to the murder and even the country's disillusionment over the Watergate scandal. When the bachelor next door, Mr. Green, starts taking interest in Marsha's mother, it becomes too much for her. She begins studying his every move and eventually accuses Mr. Green for the death of Boyd Ellison. .
In this story Berne tries to tell people that everyone has a dark side, and that people shouldn't deny it. Instead, they should take responsibility for it. She shows that it is very much human nature to have feelings that you don't like and aren't proud of. This dark side is portrayed through events in the lives of several of the characters in the story. One of the most obvious is the relationship between Marsha's mother and father. They seemed to have a very healthy relationship on the outside, but Lois soon discovers that he is cheating on her. After her husband leaves her, she seems very ashamed of everything. Everyone in the neighborhood knows he left, but nobody knows exactly what has happened. Her father, on the other hand, seems to be the only one in the story who isn't ashamed of his dark side. However, he is a very selfish and irresponsible person. At the end of the story, he comes back to see his kids after being gone for awhile. When they ask him about his affair he says, "I am sorry, about everything that's happened.
