Title: If Something Happens to Me
Author: Alex Finlay
Genre: Adult, mystery thriller
Publication date: May 2024
Published by: Minotaur Books
Source: Borrwed from library
Add it on Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | B&N | Thrift Books
Synopsis: 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.
I read The Night Shift by this author a couple of years ago, and I loved it! And after all this time, I finally got my hands on another of his books, and it was another solid mystery thriller.
I was immediately intrigued by the premise of this book: years ago, when they were teens, Ryan and his girlfriend Ali were in her car, somewhere secluded for some... private time. Well, romance turned to horror when Ali was suddenly, forcefully, taken from the car by... somebody. She was eventually thought to be dead. But years later, her car, which had also disappeared, is found in a lake with a note from Ali inside: "If something happens to me..." Is that not intriguing? I was hooked from the start because WHAT DO YOU MEAN Ali suspected something might happen to her??
One thing I've come to enjoy about this author's books is that we get multiple POVs, and I think it's really cool following a mystery with all these different perspectives. And I actually enjoyed all the POVs we followed, which is actually rare for me. There was, however, one POV in particular where I was wondering what it had to do with the mystery surrounding Ali. Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying that storyline, but I just could not see the connection. But boy, do things come together. The plot twist at the end of the first part? Holy crap! I'm still not over it and how good it got me. It was wild!
But I really enjoyed this. Even though that one plot twist got me, there was another one at the end that I saw coming. But even then, I thought this mystery thriller was solid, the story was intriguing, and overall, I just really enjoy this author's writing.
One thing I've come to enjoy about this author's books is that we get multiple POVs, and I think it's really cool following a mystery with all these different perspectives. And I actually enjoyed all the POVs we followed, which is actually rare for me. There was, however, one POV in particular where I was wondering what it had to do with the mystery surrounding Ali. Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying that storyline, but I just could not see the connection. But boy, do things come together. The plot twist at the end of the first part? Holy crap! I'm still not over it and how good it got me. It was wild!
But I really enjoyed this. Even though that one plot twist got me, there was another one at the end that I saw coming. But even then, I thought this mystery thriller was solid, the story was intriguing, and overall, I just really enjoy this author's writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment