This book follows Beth and Tom - a couple living in an idyllic small town with a young daughter. They seem to have the perfect life until the police show up one night and bring Tom in for questioning about the disappearance and possible death of his previous girlfriend. We follow them through the investigation as truths are revealed and the small town gossip and judgement start up.
I was initially very interested in the premise but the actual book didn't end up working for me. It was okay in general, but there were just so many times were I thought we were going in a certain direction and then it ended up going another way which ended up being extremely disappointing. It was almost like every time we could have either turned the tension up to an 11, the book instead decided to turn things down to a 4. This might just be because I've read so many thrillers that I could see the possibilities of where I would have preferred it to go, so maybe newer thriller readers wouldn't have these same complaints. I read this about a month before the publication date and it is currently sitting at a 3.80 out of 5 on Goodreads with 301 ratings so overall it seems readers are liking the book.
My expectation for this story was for it to be a dual POV between the police and Beth where they're investigating Tom/Beth and Beth is trying to either hide evidence or prove her innocence. That is not how the story played out. I was expecting much more of a police procedural element and for the suspicion on Beth to be pretty strong. That was not the case. I found this to be a pretty standard domestic thriller which wasn't what I was expecting. In fact, I sort of hesitate to use the word 'thriller' because it wasn't very thrilling or even suspenseful. We do jump POVs between Beth, Tom, and some other characters in the past, but we are mostly in Beth's head as she tries to figure out what to do now that Tom has been arrested. I do like how in the chapters in the past, we get very quickly changing POVs which I think worked really well especially because those chapters had a lot of tension and conflict. I would have liked to have spent more time in this past timeline to get a better feel of Tom and Beth when they first met and in their early relationship stage. It really comes down to my own expectations vs what ended up on the page and in the end I was pretty disappointed
The part of the book that worked for me the least was the characters. I felt that pretty much all of the characters were really uneven in their characterization and because of this, it really read to me like a first draft where the author was trying to figure out how much suspicion/guilt/etc each character should have. I also think there were a good number of side characters that could have had a much greater role in the plot but instead ended up being used only when needed. For example, Beth has someone working for her at her cafe and that person ends up connected to the investigation in a way. I initially thought that this would cause more tension in Beth's life or be a point where Beth realizes the scope of this investigation and how it could hurt her business. However, it ends up that this person just keeps working at the cafe and basically starts running it on her own so Beth can deal with everything going on in her life. It just felt like so much potential was there for deeper character relationships or an increase in tension and I was disappointed when nothing really came of it. Another example of poor characterization was Beth. Her father left her family when she was a child and it left a pretty big impact on Beth. It is mentioned off hand a few times that Beth has abandonment issues, but we never really see how they impact her on the page. In fact, most of the book is spent with Beth more or less being alone after Tom is arrested. We find out why that is in the big twist at the end, but in the moment we don't see Beth struggling with being away from Tom very much at all so I kept being confused about her apparent 'abandonment issues'. Even if she had worked through those issues via therapy or something earlier in life, I would think that a big event like this would bring those feelings back up again and she would end up manifesting those fears in some way.
So if I didn't like the tropes, the POV, or the characters, then why did I keep reading it? Well, I asked myself the same question when I finished the book yesterday and the answer is - the police investigation. I wanted to know if Tom was guilty and if so, how would he get caught. The investigation isn't very active on the page, but the police do drop in pretty often to inform Beth of developments or we get case updates via Tom's lawyer. Thinking back over the plot points of the book, just when I was starting to get bored there would be a new development in the case. We do get a little taste of a police procedural because we get details and discussions about things such as how long they're allowed to hold Tom without charging him, how the different court dates work, etc, but I think those elements are such as small part of the overall plot that even people who don't like police procedurals would still like this book. Now, I was expecting this book to go full Criminal Minds - like bodies under the floorboards type of plot and we don't get anything close to that crazy (in my opinion). I think having 'serial killer' in the title did make me think of a certain type of serial killer (Dahmer, Bundy, Gein, etc) which is 100% not the type of killer and not the type of investigation we get in the book.
The one thing I thought worked well was (surprisingly) the ending. And I think the reason it worked so well is that it cleared up some of my issues with Beth's characterization as well as showing the reader behind the curtain a bit of what had been happening over the past year and a half. We got a good amount of time after the big climax to see how all the dust settled which I always appreciate and the ending, while surprising, didn't pull any tricks or gotchas on the reader. When the big final twist was revealed, it was like the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place and now we could see the whole picture of this story and I really like that sort of ending. I didn't see the twist coming at the end partly, I think, because of my issues with the characterization but I could see this being the type of ending that could be guessed given the appropriate foreshadowing (and maybe some readers will be able to guess it). I personally like when I can guess at least part of the twist correctly but it isn't a requirement for me to enjoy an ending.
Overall, this story just fell flat for me - uneven characters, very light tension, and lacking the tropes I expected from the description/title. What did work was the investigation thread and the ending, which are pretty important to get right in a book like this. I think newer thriller readers would have a good time with this (or maybe just readers who aren't as well versed in serial killer media as I am) because they won't come in with as many expectations as I did.
Thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review
Expected publication date May 27, 2021.
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