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Lauren Emily Whalen

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

While We Were Burning

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Anyone who thinks we live in a post-racial world clearly hasn’t been paying attention. The highly justified anger over Black pain inflicted by white privilege is undeniable—but what happens when one grieving mother decides to exact revenge? With notes of Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Othello, Sara Koffi’s While We Were Burning is a searing debut with a complex and compelling dual narration that dares readers to question their own perspectives on everyday, casual racism.

In the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee, Elizabeth Smith’s life looks perfect, but appearances are deceiving. Her marriage is hanging on by a thread, her lifelong struggle with insomnia makes even getting out of bed a challenge, and the other white women around her—including neighbor and co-worker Patricia—don’t feel like real friends. When Patricia is found dead, strung up in a tree while still wearing her Halloween costume, Elizabeth plunges even deeper into despair. Enter Brianna, a stunning and kind Black woman whom Elizabeth hires as her personal assistant, and who quickly becomes a close friend and confidante. But unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Brianna has her own agenda: After the death of her beloved teenage son due to a 911 call from Elizabeth’s neighborhood, she’s out for blood, and she’s certain Elizabeth can get her closer to her goal. Then there’s the unexpected twist of Brianna’s attraction to Elizabeth’s husband . . .

Author Koffi, who hails from Memphis herself, seeks to explore unlikable female characters and “humanize Black women by giving them space on the page to breathe.” Hopefully, this accomplished debut is the first of many books where she will have the opportunity to do just that. Both Elizabeth and Brianna are fully realized women, fighting personal and societal demons and, in Brianna’s case, trying to survive in a world that would rather have her dead, or at least quiet and submissive. Beginning and ending with a bang, with a host of grisly surprises in between, While We Were Burning provokes deep thought and frustration, posing the fervent, urgent question: When will justice truly be served?

Sara Koffi’s While We Were Burning is a searing thriller that dares readers to question their own perspectives on everyday, casual racism.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Princess of Las Vegas

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

What happens in Vegas . . . never stays in Vegas. It’s no secret that the bright lights of Sin City just barely disguise a dark legacy of bad deals, gangsters and buried bodies. What happens when post-COVID craziness and cryptocurrency fads come on the scene, fatalities pile up and two estranged sisters are caught in the middle? Chris Bohjalian’s The Princess of Las Vegas is a thrilling symphony of royal impersonators, teenage hackers and run-down casinos with multiple mysteries at its core.

Actor Crissy Dowling has found her calling in the form of a long-dead princess. Her Diana Spencer cabaret act is the toast of the Buckingham Palace casino, and she enjoys every perk: a complimentary suite and cabana, a close friendship with her “Charles” and all the free avocado toast she can eat. So what if her pill-popping and bulimia make daily cameos, and her politician lover has gone back to his wife? But then Crissy’s bosses are both found dead, supposedly by suicide. At the same time, Crissy’s sister, Betsy, a wild child turned social worker, moves to Las Vegas to follow her new boyfriend into what promises to be a bright future in cryptocurrency, her newly adopted teenage daughter in tow. To make it out alive from the chaos that ensues, Crissy must evolve beyond the glamour girl persona she’s adopted on and offstage—and reconnect with the sister she blames for their mother’s tragic demise.

New York Times bestselling author Bohjalian is no stranger to quirky folks in increasingly twisted situations, as fans of his 2018 novel, The Flight Attendant, which was adapted into a buzzy, darkly hilarious HBO series starring Kaley Cuoco, already know. In Crissy, whose reverence for Diana has escalated into full-blown obsession, and Betsy, who strives to save everyone while also obtaining her own personal prosperity, Bohjalian has created two distinctively fascinating narrators that he then places in a setting where anything can happen, including copious violence. The Princess of Las Vegas will leave the reader with both a yearning for Sin City excitement and a deep sigh of relief at being exactly where they are.

Chris Bohjalian’s latest thriller, The Princess of Las Vegas is a thrilling symphony of run-down casinos, teenage hackers and royal impersonators with multiple mysteries at its core.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

The humans behind the hype

Feature by Lauren Emily Whalen

Podcasts, subreddits and social media: There are countless ways to feed constantly hungry true crime fanatics. But where does lore end and truth begin?

Lucy Chase is an Angeleno with a deadly secret . . . that she can’t even remember. The snarky antihero of Amy Tintera’s Listen for the Lie has spent years away from her small, less-than-charming hometown of Plumpton, Texas, where one night after a wedding, her best friend, Savannah “Savvy” Harper, was found dead in the woods. Lucy was found on the side of the road covered in blood and bruises, Savvy’s skin under her fingernails. Everyone thinks Lucy did it—even her parents—but so far no one’s been able to prove it, though Ben Owens hopes to find answers with his popular true crime podcast, “Listen for the Lie.” After Lucy reluctantly returns to Plumpton to attend her beloved grandmother’s 80th birthday party, she’s determined to avoid Ben and his probing questions, her nice-guy ex-husband, Matt, and the voices in her head urging her to kill. There’s just one problem: Ben is incredibly persuasive and exceedingly attractive. Will Ben’s interviews with Lucy and the citizens of Plumpton lead her to finally remember what happened to Savvy—and to herself? 

Tintera is both a New York Times bestselling young adult author and a Texas native, and her adult debut features a protagonist who’s as laugh-out-loud funny as she is complex. Little does her family know, Lucy is a successful pseudonymous author of romantic comedies who’s worried that her burgeoning career will be damaged if she’s unmasked as a potential murderer. Skillfully alternating between Ben’s podcast transcripts and Lucy’s compelling narration, Listen for the Lie grabs ahold of the reader from its first line—“A podcaster has decided to ruin my life, so I’m buying a chicken.”—and doesn’t let go until the jaw-dropper of a resolution.

Unlike Lucy, Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom of Kate Brody’s Rabbit Hole still lives in her hometown; she even teaches at her old high school. A decade after Teddy’s wild child of an older sister, Angie, left for a party when she was 18, never to be seen again, Teddy’s father intentionally drives off a bridge, leaving Teddy and her now thrice-widowed Irish immigrant mother to reckon with their complicated and tragic family history. What begins as a casual glance at Reddit threads about Angie’s disappearance leads Teddy down the titular rabbit hole—and to speculation that Angie is, in fact, still alive. Does Teddy’s estranged half brother hold the key? What about Angie’s teenage crush, Bill, now a local handyman and conspiracy theorist whom Teddy becomes romantically involved with? And why is Reddit user and local college student Mickey almost too eager to help Teddy find answers? 

Brody’s debut novel is both a suspenseful mystery and a provocative portrait of a broken family. Teddy is a sharply intelligent and rather cinematically flawed heroine—with her weaknesses for alcohol, junk food and, eventually, firearms—who readers will nonetheless find themselves rooting for. Cases involving young, pretty missing women are veritable catnip for the online true crime community, who can and do project endless speculations, theories and questions that often damage more than they resolve. Teddy’s story urges readers to consider the real people behind the clickbait, who often hunger for closure to no avail.

Two female-driven mysteries explore our cultural fascination with tragedy.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Dark academia is a hot aesthetic for a reason: A lot of bad behavior can play out behind ivy-covered walls, especially if it involves student-teacher power dynamics or competition for the best grades, internships and career opportunities. But what happens after graduation, when diplomas are conferred and jobs taken, but copious scars remain? Jenny Hollander’s Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead explores the aftermath of a journalism school massacre, and competing quests to find out what really happened . . . or cover it up.

A Londoner living in New York City, Charlotte “Charlie” Colbert is engaged to the handsome heir of a publishing magnate and conquering the media world as editor-in-chief of a trendy magazine. Like most New Yorkers, Charlie’s in therapy. Only in her case, it’s to process a nearly decade-old trauma, when Charlie survived a Christmas Eve attack at the prestigious Carroll University graduate school of journalism. Charlie’s satisfied with her slow progress in therapy and keeps her guard up elsewhere in her life. But then her former classmate Steph Anderson, the first person to discover the carnage and now a network news anchor, announces her participation in and financial backing of a feature film that will supposedly reveal the secrets of that fateful night. Charlie is determined to prevent the production at all costs—because she knows what actually went down on “Scarlet Christmas,” and that public revelation could destroy everything she’s built.

The director of content strategy at Marie Claire and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism, debut author Hollander is uniquely equipped to probe the minds of ambitious and extremely stressed young reporters. Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead is a tautly paced thriller that’s not short on emotion as it deftly explores tight friendships, fledgling romances and constantly shifting alliances among young 20-somethings and the media professionals they become. Engagingly twisty with a memorable cast of characters, this one-sitting read is best experienced with a strong drink on the side.

Engagingly twisty with a memorable cast of characters, Jenny Hollander’s Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead explores the aftermath of a journalism school massacre.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

Here in the Dark

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Theater is life for a specific subset of people. And it’s not just actors and stage managers—for the professional theater critic, the hours spent after the lights go down are just as sacrosanct. Alexis Soloski’s Here in the Dark follows one such critic, a New York City 30-something who finds herself embroiled in a web of deception, sex and murder.

Vivian Parry has loved the theater since childhood, but after her beloved mother’s death and a subsequent psychotic break, the former actor turned to criticism as a way to engage with her passion from a distance. Vivian’s Manhattan life is completely subsumed by her art: Even as she guns for a promotion at her prestigious magazine, Vivian maintains her isolation, disappearing by day in a haze of words, booze and pills until it’s time for that night’s curtain. When Vivian is interviewed by a graduate student who then goes missing, she’s driven to find out what happened to the enigmatic young man. An undercover stint at a Russian gambling startup, the discovery of a corpse (not his) and a fling with an earnest special effects designer follow, with Vivian drinking more and thinking less as she finds herself no closer to the truth. But as the lines between theater and reality blur, she finds herself asking: Is it all just an act?

Soloski is the best possible candidate to write a protagonist like Vivian. She not only holds a doctorate in theater from Columbia University, but also is an award-winning critic for the New York Times, former lead critic at The Village Voice and a past instructor at Barnard College and Columbia. Her debut novel is chock-full of wry observations about lighting design, references to everyone from Shakespeare to Grotowski, and enough industry inner workings to make the hearts of her fellow theater critics (which this reviewer just so happens to be) sing. For those less drama-obsessed, fear not: Here in the Dark is also a tightly paced and expertly crafted noir whose heroine is both hilariously wisecracking and deeply troubled. From curtain up to curtain call, Here in the Dark is flawless.

Theater critic Alexis Soloski’s debut thriller, Here in Dark, is flawless from curtain up to curtain call.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

The Favorites

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Juicy and dark, Rosemary Hennigan’s The Favorites is a standout dark academia thriller, with shades of Donna Tartt’s modern classic The Secret History and Emerald Fennell’s revenge fantasy film Promising Young Woman. Set at a Philadelphia law school in the days before and after the 2016 presidential election, The Favorites follows a bright young student dead set on avenging her older sister’s demise.

Jessica Mooney-Flynn enters Franklin University with one goal: ruin professor Jay Crane. As “Jessie Mooney,” the liberal Dublin native is accepted to Crane’s extremely select Law and Literature course and immediately begins her quest to become one of his infamous “favorites”: a status that is traditionally a gateway to prestigious clerkships, job opportunities and, if Jessica’s beloved older sister Audrey is any indication, a passionate affair. Back in Dublin, Audrey was the visiting professor’s favorite right before she dropped out of law school, self-isolated from her family and set out traveling, only to perish in a bus accident. Armed with text and email exchanges between the two—the last of which was Audrey’s missive “You know what you did”—Jessica seeks to entrap Crane. But what will happen when she too falls under his spell?

Hennigan knows the cloistered, clannish law school world firsthand: She studied the subject at both Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Pennsylvania. Jessica is a firecracker of a protagonist, intent on vigilante justice while still mourning the loss of her sister and fighting her growing attraction to an undeniably charismatic predator. Thanks to Hennigan’s strong voice and full embrace of the bumpy, twisty nature of retribution and revenge, The Favorites positively sings.

With its strong authorial voice and full embrace of the bumpy, twisty nature of retribution and revenge, The Favorites is a standout dark academia thriller.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

All hail the femme fatale

Feature by Lauren Emily Whalen

The femme fatale is beautiful, desirable and, above all, a survivor. While she was often villainized for that last trait in her film noir heyday, these modern takes on the figure celebrate the ferocious resilience at her core. 

★ Stone Cold Fox

The wily narrator and antiheroine of Rachel Koller Croft’s Stone Cold Fox introduces herself as Bea—but that wasn’t the name she was born with. As a child, Bea changed her name as she moved from place to place and her mother moved from husband to husband, teaching little Bea the ways to ensnare both the right men and the money and privilege that come with them. Bea’s mother may be out of the picture now, but Bea still seeks to one-up her in every way possible. Thanks to faked credentials, Bea is a high-powered advertising executive who recently became engaged to a former client, the dull but old money wealthy Collin Case. It’s a union Bea knows will set her up for life. But when Collin’s loyal best friend, Gale Wallace-Leicester, and his flirtatious old pal Dave Bradford arrive on the scene, Bea fears that her web of lies and her greedy motivations will come to light. 

Alternating between Bea’s precarious present and her checkered past as the young and vulnerable tag-along to a truly wicked woman, screenwriter Koller Croft’s stellar debut novel is a meticulously crafted thriller that will keep the reader wondering whether Bea’s actions are horrendous or aspirational. 

★ A Small Affair

Vera, the results-driven narrator of Flora Collins’ A Small Affair, has a similarly aspirational lifestyle. She has a lucrative position at an up-and-coming fashion label, an enviable Instagram feed full of striking photos and unique style, a fun and supportive roommate/best friend and, most recently, an exciting older lover named Tom, a tech guru with a mouthwatering Brooklyn brownstone and wild prowess in bed. But after Vera breaks off the relationship, Tom’s body is found alongside that of his pregnant wife, Odilie, and Vera is named in a note as the cause of the murder-suicide. The story goes viral, and Vera loses it all, with no choice but to slink off to the upstate abode of her controlling hippie mother. One depression-filled year later, Vera seeks to clear her reputation and regain her position as a Manhattan scene queen. Could the late Odilie’s Instagram be the key to solving the mystery of her and Tom’s deaths? 

Vera is a fascinating contemporary femme fatale who will stop at nothing to claw her way back to the top, even if it means faking a friendship with Page, Odilie’s naive younger sister who may have secret ambitions of her own, and deep diving into Tom’s sordid life, which is full of grisly secrets that only money can protect. Collins’ second novel (after 2021’s Nanny Dearest) rotates among the perspectives of Vera, Tom and Odilie, a trifecta of complicated personalities desperate to make it in the cutthroat city that never sleeps. The result is a twisted tale of multiple femmes fatales who will use everything they’ve got to get what they want.

Two thrillers celebrate the ferocious resilience of an iconic female archetype.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

The Soulmate

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

In The Soulmate, New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth follows two women who each thought she’d found once-in-a-lifetime love. One relies on memories to reconcile the partner she thought she knew—who is now suspected of murder—while the other speaks from beyond the grave, bereft of her beloved. As you would expect, the women’s stories are more intertwined than is immediately apparent.

Pippa has it all: a successful career, two gorgeous little girls, an adoring husband, Gabe, and a gorgeous new waterfront house situated on a cliff. There’s just one macabre drawback: The cliff is a frequent location for suicides. Shortly after they move in, Gabe becomes something of a guardian angel and talks multiple people out of killing themselves. But one fateful night, a woman approaches the cliff and, despite Gabe’s entreaties, jumps to her death. At least, that’s what Gabe claims, though the local authorities think otherwise. As Pippa reflects on her relationship with her soulmate—a dramatic saga full of lost jobs and sudden moves—so does Amanda, the woman at the cliff. Past and present collide as the reasons for Amanda’s journey to the cliff, and the extent to which Pippa has worked to protect the man she loves, become clear.

Hepworth is a master of suspense, teasing out a complicated and deadly tale as well as she teases out the complicated and occasionally deadly individuals behind it. None of the four “soulmates”—Pippa, Gabe, Amanda and Amanda’s husband—are all good or bad. The reality is far more interesting and intense, rife with professional ambition, struggles for power in the boardroom and bedroom and, for Pippa and Amanda, a never-ending quest to understand the men to whom they’re devoted. One character deals with severe mental illness, which Hepworth reveals and analyzes in ways both sensitive and true to life, and another holds onto a family secret with disturbing consequences. From its inciting incident to its final shocking twist, The Soulmate will keep readers in its thrall, making them wonder how well someone can really know their partner.

From its inciting incident to its final shocking twist, Sally Hepworth’s The Soulmate keeps readers in its thrall.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

You Can Trust Me

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Is there truly honor among thieves? When one half of a con woman duo ghosts her partner, their loyalty to each other is put to the ultimate test. Promising Young Woman meets Heartbreakers in Wendy Heard’s sharp and sexy You Can Trust Me. 

Summer (not her real name) has been thieving since childhood and learned from the best: her itinerant mother, who abandoned Summer when she was 17 years old. Now almost 30 and based in Los Angeles, Summer has taken in a younger stray named Leo who ran away as a teenager after an unspeakable family tragedy. The women live together in a tricked-out van and relish in their specialties: Summer pickpockets rich, drunk clubgoers, and Leo cozies up to older men before financially sucking them dry. But when Leo unexpectedly falls for tech entrepreneur and environmentalist Michael Forrester and accepts an invitation to his private island, Summer finds herself alone . . . and worried. Where is Leo? Why hasn’t she reached out since her first night with Michael? And how can Summer get her friend back?

Heard, author of The Kill Club, She’s Too Pretty to Burn and other stylish thrillers, deftly alternates between Summer’s and Leo’s perspectives. Leo’s timeline lags a few days behind Summer’s but gradually catches up as the two keep narrowly missing each other and encounter the same deceptive, deadly characters set on eradicating them both. Heard keeps the stakes high—Summer doesn’t want to get the authorities involved, as she doesn’t even have a birth certificate—and the secrets plentiful, as Leo recalls the painful personal history she’s never even told Summer. Both protagonists are equal parts savvy and vulnerable, as well as all too aware of materialistic LA culture (Heard lives in LA herself) and the ways they can take advantage of it. You Can Trust Me blends realistic character development and nail-biting heists, resulting in a tale of a most unique, potentially murderous alliance.

You Can Trust Me blends realistic character development and nail-biting heists as it follows two con women who are in over their heads.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

How Can I Help You

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Libraries are seen as havens, full of community resources, endless stacks of books and peace and quiet, with librarians as the keepers of the flame. However, Laura Sims’ How Can I Help You defies this image, especially the “peace and quiet” part, as a disgraced nurse and an aspiring novelist go head-to-head in the small-town library where they both work.

Margo relishes her job as a librarian in Carlyle, Indiana, especially the opportunity to help others—even if that means keeping a close eye on “Friday guy,” a patron who uses the library internet to watch porn. It’s a far cry from Margo’s former career under her real name: As a nurse, Margo’s unrelenting love and attention left several patients dead and forced her to go on the run. When Chicago transplant Patricia begins her tenure as reference librarian, she finds her discarded creative writing dreams reignited, with Margo as an unaware muse. But after Margo comes across Patricia’s novel-in-progress, the two women face a reckoning like no other.

An award-winning poet and novelist, Sims also works as a reference librarian, and she adds vivid color to this thriller by detailing the ins and outs of the profession, from tedious calls from patrons wanting to know when their favorite show is on TV to the librarians’ breathless appreciation of classically spooky authors like Shirley Jackson. Sims skillfully alternates between the perspectives of Margo, whose rose-hued memories of nursing slowly but surely grow dark, and Patricia, whose self-flagellation for “failing” as a novelist gives way to relentless, and risky, ambition. How Can I Help You perfectly blends suspense and satire and will inspire any library patron to look over their shoulder the next time they check out.

A disgraced nurse and an aspiring novelist go head-to-head in the small-town library where they both work in Laura Sims’ scary and satirical thriller.
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Bright Young Women

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

Everyone knows the term “serial killer” in today’s true crime-obsessed landscape. But Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women takes the reader back to a time before constant content about murders and those who pathologically commit them, though to say life was better then would be a vast oversimplification. Moving between past and present, Bright Young Women is a searing, feminist take on the mythology of serial killers that prioritizes the voices of survivors and victims.

It’s 1978 and The House, Florida State University’s smartest sorority, is prepared to take on the world. The sorority values friendship and achievement above all else, especially with senior Pamela “Pam Perfect” Schumacher as its president. But one late night, the pre-law student is startled awake and witnesses a strange man exiting the sorority house. Two of Pamela’s sisters are found gravely injured, and two are dead—including Denise, Pamela’s best friend and a protege of iconic artist Salvador Dali. Decades later, Pamela is a successful lawyer. The perpetrator—who left a trail of female bodies in Colorado and the Pacific Northwest before terrorizing Florida—has long since been prosecuted, but a still-haunted Pamela needs one final answer before she can finally put her ghosts to rest.

Knoll made a name for herself with her smash-hit debut thriller, Luckiest Girl Alive (2015), and Bright Young Women solidifies her status as one of the most thoughtful suspense writers working today. As well as brutal violence against women, the story investigates the ramifications of sexual assault, the complexities of grief and antiquated, destructive attitudes toward queerness. The killer himself is not glorified; Knoll describes him in bits and pieces and never names him outright, referring to him only as The Defendant. She keeps a tight, controlled focus on the novel’s women: sharp in their intelligence, fierce in their convictions and slowly accepting their own justified anger. In the hands of a less capable author, Bright Young Women may have been too much, but Knoll has crafted a primal scream for women past and present, navigating a world still designed to violently fail us.

Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women is a primal scream for women past and present.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

You’re Invited

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

The stock character of the crazy ex-girlfriend has undergone a significant reevaluation in recent years, resulting in nuanced stories that unpack the misogynist nature of the trope. (Look no further than Rachel Bloom’s musical TV series of the same name if you have any doubt.) Sri Lankan author Amanda Jayatissa follows up her award-winning debut, My Sweet Girl, with a brilliant new take on the figure. A psychological thrill ride that takes place during the fanciest of fancy nuptials, You’re Invited explores class divides, social media scandals and family drama, all through the eyes of a “crazy” ex-girlfriend who might be the sanest character in the book.

Amaya Bloom lives alone in Los Angeles, far from Sri Lanka where she came of age amid lavish surroundings as part of the country’s 1%. The 20-something keeps her past firmly to herself, except during vulnerable phone calls with her friend Beth and gratifying encounters with Alexander, Amaya’s once-a-month, no-strings-attached lover. When Amaya receives a wedding invitation from Kaavi Fonseka—her former best friend who’s now an accomplished philanthropist, wildly successful influencer and rich girl about town back in Sri Lanka—she’s not sure what to think. After all, the two haven’t spoken in five years. Then Amaya learns that Kaavi is marrying Amaya’s ex-boyfriend. Her mission? Stop the wedding, even if someone has to die.

Fans of Crazy Rich Asians and Gone Girl should look no further: Jayatissa spins a twisted tale of glittery parties, meddling aunties and a friendship between two young women that went horribly awry once a man got involved. The novel’s opening sentence—“I woke up with bruised knuckles and blood under my fingernails, more rested than I have been in years”—is but a taste of the horror to come, all bedecked in yards of the finest fabric and studded with gems from the Fonseka family’s jewelry empire. Both Amaya and Kaavi are fascinating characters, foils with a shared history and much more to each than meets the eye. You’re Invited is a thoroughly satisfying and beautifully plotted thriller, featuring characters you won’t soon forget and a head-spinning twist to top it all off.

You’re Invited is a thoroughly satisfying and beautifully plotted thriller that deconstructs the trope of the crazy ex-girlfriend.
Mystery & SuspenseThriller

The House Across the Lake

Review by Lauren Emily Whalen

A Riley Sager novel is a guaranteed wild ride, and the New York Times bestseller’s hotly anticipated sixth book, The House Across the Lake, is no different. Sager is the literary equivalent of a master chef, using a deft hand to configure tasty ingredients—a complex, grieving woman with alcoholism; a missing supermodel with dangerous secrets behind her dazzling smile; and the picturesque lake that brings them together—then adding a generous pinch of pulp and a delicious surprise at the end. The result is an addictive beach read that fans will devour in one sitting and leave feeling thoroughly sated.

Rear Window meets Lake Placid in the story of Casey Fletcher, a character actress with a complicated legacy. Her mother, legendary musical theater performer Lolly Fletcher, who prefers hoofing it on stage to providing emotional support, has shipped her off to the family cottage and ordered Casey to relax and reflect. Casey is also supposed to stay sober, which is all but impossible given her grief over the recent accidental death of her husband, Len, in the lake right next to the cottage. Enter Tom and Katherine Royce, a tech mogul and retired model, respectively, who are staying in the glass house across the lake. A tentative friendship between the women ensues, but soon after, Katherine disappears without a trace. Is Tom responsible? How about hunky handyman Boone? Or do the answers lie in the body of water that claimed the love of Casey’s life?

Sager (Survive the Night, Home Before Dark) balances the novel’s short timeline and limited setting with rich characterization for all, especially Katherine, whom the reader meets as she nearly drowns in the dark, freezing lake, and Casey, whose never-ending supply of snarky one-liners and wisecracks never quite camouflages the deep emotional turmoil that ended her once-successful acting career. The House Across the Lake is a psychological thriller that’s thoroughly personality-driven, following women whose motives, means and opportunities are as murkily fascinating as the titular loch.

Riley Sager’s latest thriller is an addictive beach read that fans will devour in one sitting—and leave feeling thoroughly sated.

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