Someone We Know
A Novel
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4.2 • 1.8K Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
“Poised and chilling.” —Wall Street Journal
“No-one does suburban paranoia like Shari Lapena—this slowly unfurling nightmare will have you biting your nails until the end.” —Ruth Ware
Another thrilling domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door and Not a Happy Family
Maybe you don't know your neighbors as well as you thought you did . . .
"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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It’s neighbor against neighbor in this gloriously soapy thriller, where closed doors conceal secrets—including illicit affairs and the identity of a murderer. When a prominent lawyer’s wife turns up dead in a suburban hamlet in New York State, two gumshoes try to crack the case—and in the process, learn that both halves of the couple were sleeping with other people. Embroiled in the drama is a teen hacker who may know more about his neighbors than he’s letting on. Shari Lapena’s zippy plot and ability to keep her characters’ true motivations just out of reach make this a fantastic whodunit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this slyly plotted if anemically peopled page-turner from bestseller Lapena (An Unwanted Guest), there's nary a ripple in the bucolic Hudson Valley city of Aylesford, N.Y., after lawyer Robert Pierce reports his wife, Amanda, missing; most neighbors assume Amanda simply left him. But when rumors spread that an at first unnamed teen has been breaking into homes and hacking into the occupants' computers, it's quite a different story, setting in motion a snowballing of suspicion, subterfuge, and bungled amateur sleuthing. The discovery of a car with a badly bludgeoned body inside the trunk in a nearby lake potentially creates a huge problem for 16-year-old hacker Raleigh Sharpe, whose fingerprints are all over the victim's house. He also risks being identified because of the ill-advised anonymous apology notes his mother slips under the doors of those he admits to her to have hacked. Lapena skillfully maximizes suspense with her dual story lines that eventually collide, as well as some deft misdirection. Unfortunately, most of her characters don't rise above serviceable, and the final plot twists prove as implausible as they are surprising. Still, many fans of domestic suspense will be satisfied.
Customer Reviews
A good read
The book started off slow, but it picks up and gets good. When I thought I figured who the killer was, here comes another person story introduced and I’m back at square one. When the killer was revealed, I didn’t expect it at all. Shari Lapena did a great job keeping each person secrets interesting and how all of them tied together.
Someone we Know
Someone we know …
Wow
Not too bad
But nothing to write home about. And one rather annoying loose thread never explained. Also, the motive for the last murder doesn’t hold water.