Author: Alex Finlay
Publication: Minotaur Books (May 28, 2024)
Description: From “one of the genre’s most exciting voices” (E! News) comes one of the year’s most-anticipated thrillers.
For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken.
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.
Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me…
Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.
As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.
In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told by several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The novel cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.
My Thoughts: IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME is an intriguing, braided tale. It is told in multiple viewpoints. Ryan has changed his last name and entered law school to get away from the fateful night when he and his girlfriend Ali were attacked at the local make-out spot. She disappeared and he was questioned in her disappearance.
The second point of view is that of Poppy McGee who is in her first week as a sheriff's deputy in her hometown of Leavenworth after an honorable discharge from the Army when she was harassed by a superior officer. Her first job happens after Ali's car was discovered at the bottom of a local lake by true crime podcasters. Ali's body wasn't there but the bodies of two men, shot in the head, were.
The third point of view is that of Shane O'Leary who is a crime boss in Philadelphia who goes on a rampage when his teenage son commits suicide after bullying at his exclusive prep school. His accountant raids his accounts in a Swiss bank and goes on the run with his teenage daughter who was a part of the bullying.
As the story progresses, we learn how all three parts of the story connect. The clues are gradually revealed as the characters investigate their own parts of the mystery. This was a fast-paced and intriguing thriller. It was filled with adventure and discoveries.
Favorite Quote:
Favorite Quote:
"You think it is Alison Lane's car?" the bearded guy asks.The sheriff nods. "The bigger question is who are the two dead guys you found in it?"
I really like this one. Hope I can track this author down.
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