End of Story

Sebastian Trapp is a reclusive mystery novelist who lives in the Bay Area with his beautiful second wife Diana, and overly protective daughter, Maddie. His longtime correspondent is Nicky Hunter (an expert in detective fiction). When Sebastian invites Nicky to stay in his home and tell his story (not a spoiler but Sebastian is sick and has a life expectancy of just three months), the offer is irresistible. But is this a good idea? Sebastian has his own real life (potentially muderous) mystery. Twenty years earlier in 1999, Sebastian’s first wife and teenage son each vanished. From different locations, never to be seen again. Nicky finds herself drawn in, determined to get to the bottom of what actually happened that night. When a corpse appears in the koi pond outside their home, the stakes get even higher. I wanted to love this but only liked it. I had really been looking forward to it (I loved The Woman in the Window!) but found the first 75% to be rather sleepy — nothing was happening and there were so many names and personalities to get to know. But the ending really blew me away, which made it worth the read. Just know going into this that it’s worthwhile, but going to take a while to get there.