The Substitute
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4.4 • 16 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins, The Substitute is a deliciously creepy psychological thriller that will keep you guessing until the very last page.
Warren Botts is a disillusioned Ph.D. taking a break from his lab to teach middle-school science. Gentle, soft-spoken, and introverted, Warren befriends thirteen-year-old Amanda, a lonely student looking for guidance.
One morning, Warren returns from a jog to find Amanda dead, hanging from a tree in his backyard. A police investigation follows, but Warren is unable — or unwilling — to answer the questions that swirl around him. Suspicions mount, and Warren’s peaceful neighbours quickly become hostile.
Meanwhile, an anonymous narrator who possesses a dangerous combination of extreme intelligence and emotional detachment offers insight into events past and present. As the tension builds, we gain an intimate understanding of the power of memories, secrets, and lies.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Duelling narrators keep the truth out of reach till the final pages of Nicole Lundrigan’s tense, enjoyable mystery. The thriller’s chapters alternate between the POV of Warren Botts—an awkward high-school science teacher whose life is overturned when a student shows up dead behind his house—and the disturbing perspective of the killer, who may or may not be Warren. Lundrigan’s moody and strikingly poetic prose stands out in a genre that often hinges entirely on plot. She skillfully retains an element of surprise—you’ll find it hard not to gasp when you reach the end.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Warren Botts, a substitute teacher in a small unnamed Canadian town, is suspected of murder in this sly and clever thriller from Lundrigan (The Widow Tree). He discovers the victim, Amanda Fuller, a 13-year-old girl in one of his classes, hanging from a tree in his backyard. His shocked phone call to 911 and odd responses to the operator's questions only further implicate him. Botts is socially awkward to begin with, and his scattered reaction to Amanda's death makes readers wonder if he really is that way or if he is just an unreliable character in a third-person narrative. There's also another first-person narrator, someone who seems to know all the secrets. Lundrigan's use of the two alternating narrative styles deepens the suspense. This slow-burning thriller can be a bit too slow at times, weighed down by description, and beginning the story with the discovery of a dead teenage girl is an overused trope. Nevertheless, this book will keep readers guessing, and, for the most part, they'll be surprised by how it all plays out.
