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Summary
Summary
"Excellent...Donlea tells a propulsive tale." - The New York Times
The New York Times Best Thrillers This Season | E! News Recommended Books | Overdrive Biggest Books of the Month
Fans of Verity by Colleen Hoover won't want to miss this thrilling new suspense novel from the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Girl Who Was Taken ! Hiding her own dark past in plain sight, a TV reporter is determined to uncover the truth behind a gruesome murder decades after the investigation was abandoned. But TWENTY YEARS LATER, to understand the present, you need to listen to the past...
Avery Mason, host of American Events , knows the subjects that grab a TV audience's attention. Her latest story--a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy, and betrayal--is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner's office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years. The twist: the victim, Victoria Ford, had been accused of the gruesome murder of her married lover. In a chilling last phone call to her sister, Victoria begged her to prove her innocence.
Emma Kind has waited twenty years to put her sister to rest, but closure won't be complete until she can clear Victoria's name. Alone she's had no luck, but she's convinced that Avery's connections and fame will help. Avery, hoping to negotiate a more lucrative network contract, goes into investigative overdrive. Victoria had been having an affair with a successful novelist, found hanging from the balcony of his Catskills mansion. The rope, the bedroom, and the entire crime scene was covered in Victoria's DNA.
But the twisted puzzle of Victoria's private life is just the beginning. And what Avery doesn't realize is that there are other players in the game who are interested in Avery's own secret past--one she has kept hidden from both the network executives and her television audience. A secret she thought was dead and buried . . .
Accused of a brutal murder, Victoria Ford made a final chilling call from the North Tower on the morning of 9/11. Twenty years ago, no one listened. Today, you will.
"Breathtaking pacing and clever plot twists." -- Publishers Weekly
"An entertaining thriller...surprises lurking around every corner." -- Kirkus Reviews
"A superb storyteller." -- Robert Dugoni , New York Times bestselling author
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The murder of wildly successful author Cameron Young in 2001 drives this enjoyable if less than credible thriller from Donlea (The Suicide House). The primary suspect in Young's headline-grabbing death was Victoria Ford, but before she could be tried, Victoria died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Messages left on her sister's answering machine that day and the identification of Victoria's remains, recovered at Ground Zero, in 2021 lead Avery Mason, the host of a popular TV news show, to investigate the cold case. New evidence suggests that somebody may have framed Victoria for Young's murder. Proving Victoria innocent--and finding the real killer--is just the leverage Avery needs in her cutthroat contract negotiations with the network executives. The case also offers a chance of redemption to retired FBI agent Walt Jenkins, who now spends his days lost in a bottle of rum. With a dangerous secret in her past threatening to come to light as the Young case evolves, Avery races the clock to solve more than one mystery. Never mind that this secret could have been easily uncovered by anyone researching her life. Breathtaking pacing and clever plot twists mask thinly developed characters. Donlea's fans will be satisfied. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary. (Jan.)
Kirkus Review
Twenty years after an accused murderer's initial meeting with her attorney is cut short by the 9/11 attack, a shocking discovery reopens the case, and several other mysteries as well. The circumstantial evidence that Victoria Ford whipped and choked and hanged her lover, bestselling author Cameron Young, was strong, the forensic evidence even more damning. Nonetheless, Roman Manchester was poised to take on her defense when the attack on the World Trade Center, where he had his office, rendered the whole case moot. When a bit of bone extracted from the wreckage 20 years later is finally identified as Victoria's, ambitious American Event anchor Avery Mason, avid for a big story that will strengthen her hand as she bargains for a new contract, envisions the ratings she'll get from retelling the story, which features Cameron's then-pregnant wife, professor Tessa Young; the abortion that prevented Victoria from having any more children; a ghoulish murder scene; and a lurid sex tape. Walt Jenkins, who handled the investigation back in 2001, comes out of retirement in Jamaica to help Avery, little knowing that she has another, more deep-laid motive for her sudden burning interest. For her part, Natalie Ratcliff, the wealthy college friend Victoria hoped would help her pay Roman Manchester's enormous bill, is hiding a secret of her own. So many parties to the new investigation are hiding so many secrets, in fact, that when the big reveal finally comes, it seems both utterly logical and somehow beside the point of whatever the larger pattern might be. An entertaining thriller with often unrelated surprises lurking around every corner up to the final anticlimax. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.