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Release date: February 26, 2019

Publisher: Crown

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

What really happened the night Edie died? Ten years later, her best friend Lindsay will learn how unprepared she is for the truth.

In 2009, Edie had New York’s social world in her thrall. Mercurial and beguiling, she was the shining star of a group of recent graduates living in a Brooklyn loft and treating the city like their playground. When Edie’s body was found near a suicide note at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could believe it. Grief, shock, and resentment scattered the group and brought the era to an abrupt end.

A decade later, Lindsay has come a long way from the drug-addled world of Calhoun Lofts. She has devoted best friends, a cozy apartment, and a thriving career as a magazine’s head fact-checker. But when a chance reunion leads Lindsay to discover an unsettling video from that hazy night, she starts to wonder if Edie was actually murdered—and, worse, if she herself was involved. As she rifles through those months in 2009—combing through case files, old technology, and her fractured memories—Lindsay is forced to confront the demons of her own violent history to bring the truth to light. 

Review:

I absolutely love any sort of book that deals with old murders and unsolved cases and this one appealed to me even more so because it’s unknown whether Edie was even murdered or if she committed suicide like the cops assumed. There was a lot of unknown factors in the one across the board and while it only left me guessing for about half the time, it maintained my interest throughout.

The bulk of the narrative is shaped by Lindsay with a handful of chapters from her old friend group scattered about. Lindsay is a tough character to describe, on the one hand she’s not likable at all, but it’s not really in a fun way, like a love to hate character. Instead she was pretty immature and whiny for a thirty something grown ass woman. It even kind of felt like a YA novel at times due to her lack of maturity, she got on my nerves quite a bit. Edie herself was actually pretty terrible too, she wasn’t portrayed as a very kind person and it was kind of difficult to toss any sympathy her way.

While the characters were pretty awful I was drawn in by the authors writing style, though it was slightly verbose. Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of long chapters, especially in a mystery. I much prefer the fast paced, cliffhanger type chapters that propel me forward and urge me to keep reading just one more chapter. But Bartz’s style was captivating, almost poetic at times and she did bring me back to NYV circa 2009 with surprising ease. I would suggest this one to anyone that’s new to thrillers or someone looking for a lighter style mystery, it was lacking that punch and darkness that I crave when I’m wholly invested in a thriller.

Overall rating: 3/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.