May 27, 2019
In this slyly plotted if anemically peopled page-turner from bestseller Lapena (An Unwanted Guest), there’s nary a ripple in the bucolic Hudson Valley city of Aylesford, N.Y., after lawyer Robert Pierce reports his wife, Amanda, missing; most neighbors assume Amanda simply left him. But when rumors spread that an at first unnamed teen has been breaking into homes and hacking into the occupants’ computers, it’s quite a different story, setting in motion a snowballing of suspicion, subterfuge, and bungled amateur sleuthing. The discovery of a car with a badly bludgeoned body inside the trunk in a nearby lake potentially creates a huge problem for 16-year-old hacker Raleigh Sharpe, whose fingerprints are all over the victim’s house. He also risks being identified because of the ill-advised anonymous apology notes his mother slips under the doors of those he admits to her to have hacked. Lapena skillfully maximizes suspense with her dual story lines that eventually collide, as well as some deft misdirection. Unfortunately, most of her characters don’t rise above serviceable, and the final plot twists prove as implausible as they are surprising. Still, many fans of domestic suspense will be satisfied. Agent: Helen Heller, Helen Heller Agency (Canada).