Last to Know
A Novel
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
Told with Elizabeth Adler's inimitable style, illuminating descriptions, and intricate family dynamics, Last to Know is the definition of a page-turner.
Evening Lake: an idyllic, peaceful, western Massachusetts getaway with a close-knit community of families. Detective Harry Jordan sees his lake home as a respite from solving crimes on the streets of Boston...until crime comes to Evening Lake.
Harry is out for a walk when the night is rocked by an explosion: the Havnel house is engulfed in a conflagration and Bea Havnel is seen fleeing, hair on fire, plunging into the lake. Mysterious, rough-around-the edges, and private, Bea and her mother Lacey are newcomers to Evening Lake and nothing like the well-heeled families of the community.
Bea survives the fire, but her mother does not, and Harry is pulled into the investigation. As is young Diz Osborne, who, unbeknownst to any of them, carries a weighty secret about who else he saw rowing on the lake that night. When it's discovered that Lacey Havnel died not from the explosion but from a knife wound, it's clear that a murderer is on the loose. And this murderer is poised to strike again, and again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this plodding whodunit from Adler (Please Don't Tell), Boston homicide detective Harry Jordan retreats to his lakeside cabin in Evening Lake, Mass., to decompress after the recent breakup with his fianc e, Mallory Malone. But he can't relax for long when a neighboring house, belonging to Lacey Havnel and her daughter, Bea, suddenly goes up in flames, with Bea the only survivor. Little is known about the Havnels among the small community of Evening Lake, but the unofficial matriarch of the area, Rose Osborne, agrees to take 21-year-old Bea in while the investigation into the fire continues. Rose and her husband, acclaimed suspense novelist Wally Osborne, share their home, known as a haven of calm, with oldest son Roman, twins Madison and Frazer, and youngest son, Diz. When Jordan digs deeper into the lives of Lacey and Bea, he's surprised by the larcenous trail he discovers, making him question whether the fire was an accident after all. In predictable fashion, another corpse shows up, and the Osbornes are revealed to be more complex than they first appeared. Readers will find nothing new or revelatory, and the interstitial sections written by "the killer" are more annoying than insightful.