Therapists create a safe space where people can share their deepest and darkest thoughts with no judgment or scrutiny, right? They are impartial listeners who help clients navigate their own psyche in order to improve the overall quality of their lives, right? Well…
Alice’s life is undergoing sweeping changes. She and her boyfriend, Leo, have decided that not only are they going to move in together, but they are going to relocate from Alice’s cottage in the English countryside to a quaint neighborhood just on the outskirts of downtown London. Alice cannot understand why her new neighbors are not welcoming them with open arms, and she is determined to make friends with the other families in her gated community. As she finds out more about her neighbors and the area, she discovers that a gruesome murder took place in the master bedroom. The murderer committed suicide, but Alice can’t seem to shake the feeling that there is more to the story and it’s not the murder-suicide case that the other neighbors have come to accept. She develops an inexplicable attachment to the victim, and she slowly descends into an over-the-top obsession with finding the victim’s real killer. In her search for justice for the victim, she suspects everybody and nobody, but she will not rest until she finds answers…even if it kills her.
Trigger warnings: Death, suicide, murder
It is RARE that I give a thriller a 5-star rating, but I loved everything about this book. It was just a wonderfully written and classic whodunit that truly left me guessing until the very end. If I can be honest, I was fairly certain in the person behind Nina’s murder but I kept saying, “Surely it’s not that obvious, right?” However, the way that it was written cast doubt on my certainty throughout the book, and I truly didn’t know the final truth with absolute certainty until the final pages. I thought the author tied all the loose ends, and the big reveal, while not likely, was believable (which, for me, is rare to find in a thriller). There was also no foul language which I truly appreciated because, for me, it just takes away from the book. Again, that’s just me. I loved the characters and empathized with them and their predicaments. I highly recommend this if you like thrillers!