Thursday, July 30, 2020

The End of Her - Shari Lapena

If you're a fan of domestic noir, you should have Shari Lapena on your must read list. Her latest book, The End of Her, has just released.

Patrick and Stephanie are adapting to having a set of twin girls. The babes are colicky and mom and dad are sleep deprived. Oh, you just know things are going to ramp up!

Erica, a woman from Patrick's contacts Stephanie and tells her that Patrick's first wife's death was not an accident as her told her. Instead, Erica says that Patrick murdered her. This is just crazy Stephanie thinks, my husband couldn't be a murderer. But, she begins to have her doubts and starts to look into Patrick's past a little closer. Patrick is a bit of an enigma and I wasn't sure about his innocence or guilt. Erica is such a calculating opportunist - her scenes and dialogue are particularly well done. And she has other opportunities in mind as well.

This is a great cat and mouse plot, with the reader never quite sure who is telling the truth, who is the hunter and who is the hunted. I love the uncertainty. And the unreliability of sleep deprived Stephanie's thinking. And every other twist that Lapena threw in!

The ending caught me a bit off guard and I flipped back to see if I had missed something. I'm not going to spoil it by explaining, but after consideration, it was a fitting end.

A great escapist read - here's an excerpt of The End of Her.

2 comments:

Kay said...

I've got this one to read soon and am looking forward to it. I think I've read all of Shari Lapena's book or almost all. I usually like them very much. Maybe I'll get into it next after I finish my current book. :-)

Luanne said...

Kay, this isn't my fave, but it's still an addictive read.