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A review by paulabrandon
Someone We Know by Shari Lapena
4.0
A fun, traditional murder mystery. Olivia Sharpe is shocked when she discovers that her son, Raleigh, has been breaking into homes around the neighbourhood, testing out his hacking skills. She writes an anonymous letter to the houses that Raleigh admits breaking into, apologising for his actions. This happens to coincide with the murder of Amanda Pierce, a young, seductive woman living in the area, and pretty soon, all sorts of secrets from various people in the neighbourhood are spilling out, with several suspects in Amanda's murder coming to the fore.
This reminded me a bit of Mary Higgins Clark, when she was in her prime in the 80s to early 2000s. The plot isn't as intricate and complex as what Clark put out back then, but it maintains the intrigue from start to finish. The who, why and what behind everything was pretty easy to figure out, and a lot of the answers very arbitrary (just like Clark, really), but that didn't detract from the enjoyment. (Also, I'm probably being generous after coming off a particularly awful four-book romantic suspense mini-series from Mills & Boon.)
But I had fun with this. Devoid of many of the trendy tropes found in much of today's thriller fiction, Someone We Know was uncomplicated and entertaining, and I was always looking forward to coming back to it when annoying things like a day job kept getting in the way of me reading it.
This reminded me a bit of Mary Higgins Clark, when she was in her prime in the 80s to early 2000s. The plot isn't as intricate and complex as what Clark put out back then, but it maintains the intrigue from start to finish. The who, why and what behind everything was pretty easy to figure out, and a lot of the answers very arbitrary (just like Clark, really), but that didn't detract from the enjoyment. (Also, I'm probably being generous after coming off a particularly awful four-book romantic suspense mini-series from Mills & Boon.)
But I had fun with this. Devoid of many of the trendy tropes found in much of today's thriller fiction, Someone We Know was uncomplicated and entertaining, and I was always looking forward to coming back to it when annoying things like a day job kept getting in the way of me reading it.