My sister Joy has read a couple of this author's books. I never had. Saw this in the library last week and thought it sounded interesting. I probably won't read any more of hers.
STORY SUMMARY
In a suburb downstate in the Hudson Valley of New York (the author calls it upstate.....we here in the Capital District would say downstate), there is a quiet suburban town called Aylesford. (a fictional town for NYS but there is one in Nova Scotia!)
Alyesford is small and the neighborhood that Olivia and her husband Paul live in is one in which just about everyone knows everyone else. Olivia and Paul have a son named Raleigh. He is 16 yrs old and good friends with two other teen boys, Mark and Adam. Adam tends to get drunk a lot and this bothers his mother Glenda who is best friends with Olivia. Glenda and her husband Keith spend a lot of time with Olivia and Paul and they are very close. But.....every family has secrets.
Not much ever really happens in the small town....until it does.
A teenager has been breaking into the neighborhood homes and hacking into personal computers. He has learned many of their secrets.
Which teen boy is doing this and what might he have learned or uncovered?
Soon, two anonymous letters show up at two of the homes the teen boy has broken into. Now suspicions begin to fly and whispers start to circulate.
Then....a rather new to the area woman goes missing. The woman's name is Amanda Pierce and her husband Robert reports her missing after she doesn't return from a supposed shopping trip with her friend Caroline to NYC. The police begin to question Robert. Then a few days later, her car is found in a lake up in the Catskills and her body is found in the trunk. She has been brutally beaten and murdered.
Robert is of course the police's first suspect.
But......the police soon learn that Amanda has been having not just one affair but possibly several.
Or has she??
How far will these very nice suburban people go to protect one of their own? Who really killed Amanda? and why?
MY THOUGHTS
This book started boring me about half way through as I kept feeling like I had already guessed who did it (I was correct!) and much of the plot seemed redundant.
It's an okay mystery but I've honestly read much more exciting "who dun it" stories.
There's quite a few characters to keep track of although it wasn't cumbersome to do so.
I found no editing errors in the story and there wasn't all that much crass language.
The main themes in the book seem to be: parent-child relationships; friendships; marital strife and adultery; deception/lies; betrayal; mistrust; dishonesty; underage drinking; computer hacking; breaking and entering; murder.
I did like the character development and setting. Each character has flaws but also many strengths. One big flaw is that they all assume they know each other and yet...they really don't. This is very typical I think of modern society. As in: how well do we really know our neighbors??
The ending was the best part.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 7.
1 comment:
I have read a few books by this author and find them to be hit or miss. Thanks for the review.
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