The Dangers of an ordinary night : a novel / Lynne Reeves.

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Title:

The Dangers of an ordinary night : a novel / Lynne Reeves.

Author:

Reeves, Lynne

ISBN:

9781643858654

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Information:

New York : Crooked Lane, 2021.

Physical Description:

282 p.

Abstract:

One evening, best friends Tali Carrington and June Danforth go missing. Two days later, Tali is found disoriented and traumatized, while June is pronounced dead. Tali's mother, Nell, is so bent on protecting her daughter from further emotional harm that she ignores rumours of her husband's involvement. Meanwhile, Detective Fitz Jameson uncovers a criminal undertow involving the high school's overachieving students. As Nell, Cynthia, and Fitz confront their own contributions to the scandals that beleaguer them, their lives turn out to be more deeply intertwined than they'd ever imagined.

Subject Term:

Secrecy -- Fiction.

Deception -- Fiction.

Criminal investigation -- Fiction.

Psychological fiction.

Genre:

Suspense fiction.

Detective and mystery stories.

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Avon-Washington Township Public Library	Adult Fiction Book Hardback	120791002919657	F REE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Megan Abbott, Lynne Reeves' The Dangers of an Ordinary Night is an exploration of the explosive family secrets that are often hidden in plain sight.

On a chilly fall evening at the prestigious Performing Arts High School of Boston, best friends Tali Carrington and June Danforth go missing after auditioning for a play. They're last seen in grainy, out-of-focus surveillance footage that shows them walking away from the school. Two days later in a town south of Boston, Tali is found disoriented and traumatized by the ocean's edge, while June is pronounced dead at the scene.

Tali's mother, Nell, is so bent on protecting her daughter from further emotional harm that she ignores rumors of her husband's involvement and enlists the help of Cynthia Rawlins, a reunification therapist with personal insight into the riptide that hides below the surface of every unsuspecting family. Meanwhile, Detective Fitz Jameson uncovers a criminal undertow involving the high school's overachieving students, and finally sees an opportunity for personal redemption from a secret that's haunted him for years.

As Nell, Cynthia, and Fitz confront their own contributions to the scandals that beleaguer them, their lives turn out to be more deeply intertwined than they'd ever imagined. In the end, they must decide what lengths they're willing to go to protect the people they love while also saving themselves.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Family counselor Reeves' fourth novel is a three-act tragedy that peers beneath every parent's worst nightmare and asks which of the statistically normal traumas underneath precipitated it. Two days after best friends June Danforth and Natalie Carrington leave an audition at The Performing Arts High School of Boston and vanish, caretaker Charles Turner Stockbridge finds them on secluded Watties Beach, June dead of exposure, Tali still alive. Who kidnapped the 17-year-olds and left them to die? It would be nice to believe that the perp must be a drifter from outside their social circle, but Detective Fitz Jameson finds himself concentrating on several suspects unpleasantly close to the two young women: Stockbridge, who can't explain why he found June, who died facedown, lying face up; Sam Wallace, a sophomore at Performing Arts who's clearly its star actor; his stage mother, Ana, who's resolved that the show must go on whatever the cost to Tali; insensitive director Greg Normand, whose reflexive response to any crisis is more bullying; and Zeke Carrington, Tali's father, whose gambling addiction had beholden him to such seriously dangerous creditors that his wife, Nell, is considering divorce proceedings. Working with psychiatrist Dr. Cynthia Rawlins, who's more than eager to quit her brutally taxing job of trauma counseling for a teaching job at Boston College, Fitz, who's hiding a dark secret of his own, hunkers down to unearth the truth to the accompaniment of 27 chapter titles drawn from 27 plays. Reeves' uncommonly assured novel, by turns sensitive and scarifying, identifies an elusive target and hits it dead on. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.