The Note
A Novel
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A vacation in the Hamptons goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history.
“I absolutely loved The Note. Trust no one in this irresistible page-turner.” —Ashley Elston, #1 New York Times best-selling author of First Lie Wins
It was meant to be a harmless prank.
Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing.
But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she's had her fair share of both. Their bond—forged when May was just twelve years old—has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry.
When she finds herself at the center of an urgent police investigation, May begins to wonder whether Lauren and Kelsey are keeping secrets from her, testing the limits of her loyalty to lifelong friends.
What had they gone and done?
The Note is a page-turner of the highest order from one of our greatest contemporary suspense writers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A prank goes wrong in this disappointing standalone from bestseller Burke (Find Me). Law professor May Hanover jumps at the opportunity to meet her two best friends, commercial real estate heiress Kelsey Ellis and renowned musician Lauren Berry, for a weekend getaway in the Hamptons. Frustrated by a couple who steals their parking space at a restaurant, the women write a cryptic note ("He's cheating. He always does") on a napkin and leave it on the strangers' car. On the last day of their trip, they learn that David Smith, the driver of the car, has gone missing. When the NYPD show up at May's building in Manhattan, she attempts to clear the air, but the police remain suspicious—owing, in part, to each woman's involvement in heavily publicized scandals: Lauren has been engaged in a decades-long affair with a married Texas oilman; May suffered a breakdown on a New York City subway platform that went viral; and Kelsey's estranged husband was gunned down five years earlier by an unknown killer. Patient readers will enjoy the clever conclusion, but each woman's backstory is given so much space that it significantly slackens the narrative tension, and there's no one to root for among the unpleasant cast. Burke has done better.
