Monday, 18 November 2019

Book ~ "Someone We Know" (2019) Shari Lapena

From Goodreads ~ "This is a very difficult letter to write. I hope you will not hate us too much.  My son broke into your home recently while you were out."

In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses - and into the owners' computers as well - learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too.

Who is he and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they're telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their own secrets?

In this neighborhood, it's not just the husbands and wives who play games. Here, everyone in the family has something to hide.

You never really know what people are capable of.

When Amanda doesn't come home after a shopping weekend away with a friend, her husband, Robert, reports her missing.  It turns out she wasn't away with her friend after all and everyone assumes she has left her abusive husband ... until her body turns up.  Then the police start investigating.  It seems like all the men in the neighbourhood were attracted to Amanda (and she didn't discourage them) and because of this, their wives didn't like her.

In the meantime, Olivia and Paul's son, Raleigh, has been breaking into houses, not to steal anything, but to hack into their computers.  When Olivia finds out, she feels bad and sends anonymous letters of apology to the two houses she knows about.  This puts one neighbour on the hunt to find out who had broken into her house.

This was an interesting story with lots of twists and turns to throw you off and get you thinking in different directions about whodunnit.  The whodunnit was a surprise to me and I'm not sure I'm really buying it.  I liked the writing style, though.  It's written in third person perspective with a focus on wherever the action is.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

This is the second book I've read by this author and I look forward to reading other books by her.

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