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rbreade's review
The back cover blurb claims this is "part thriller and part psychological drama." The second part is true, and the first is blurbspeak, at which Fred rolls his eyes if asked. Yes, Megan Lutz, at her job in a Charlotte art gallery, is struck on the head from behind halfway through the novel and spends part of the novel in a coma, and even when recovered is unable to identify her attacker, and yes her husband Warner, newly hired fundraising director of a nonprofit, is known by all, even his parents, to have a quick temper.
However, I never considered Warner a suspect, though I was fascinated to watch as others--even his mother--came to regard him as the only logical person to blame. The novel is exact in exploring the many layers of the several relationships here, between husband and wife, son and parent, son-in-law and mother-in-law, employee and employer, and the complicating factors of young children, the pressure of being nonprofit and less affluent in a city like Charlotte that values banking, affluence, and status and little else. You see how life finds and exploits all the fault lines in a personality and in a relationship, grinding away until only rubble is left.
However, I never considered Warner a suspect, though I was fascinated to watch as others--even his mother--came to regard him as the only logical person to blame. The novel is exact in exploring the many layers of the several relationships here, between husband and wife, son and parent, son-in-law and mother-in-law, employee and employer, and the complicating factors of young children, the pressure of being nonprofit and less affluent in a city like Charlotte that values banking, affluence, and status and little else. You see how life finds and exploits all the fault lines in a personality and in a relationship, grinding away until only rubble is left.
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