Goodnight Beautiful

August 3, 2020
It’s no accident that more than one character is reading Stephen King’s Misery in this crafty page-turner from bestseller Molloy (The Perfect Mother). For starters, plenty of it—misery, that is—awaits newlyweds Sam Statler and Annie Potter after their move from Manhattan to Sam’s upstate hometown of Chestnut Hill, N.Y., to be closer to his ailing mother. After a heady first few weeks during which Sam’s therapy practice explodes with women eager for face time with the studly psychologist, he disappears—shaking Annie to the core. But, in the absence of clear indications of foul play, his disappearance is a low priority for the local police, especially once they get anonymous tips about his major debts and possible affair with a patient of his. After some accomplished misdirection, Molloy flips the story on its head. The surprising revelations compensate for the book’s major weakness—readers not getting to know the most appealing character, spunky Annie, until late in the plot when she’s forced to turn detective to search for the husband she still loves despite his considerable flaws. Psychological thriller fans won’t want to miss this one. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Weed Literary.

September 4, 2020

Molloy (The Good Mother) opens her new thriller with the disappearance of Dr. Sam Statler, a psychologist who recently moved back to his small hometown with a new wife to be close to his mother, who's living in a care center with dementia. Statler has model good looks, professional success, and a ladies' man reputation from high school that has made his return the talk of the town. Through shifting narrative perspectives we learn more about secrets in the seemingly storybook Statler marriage that complicate the missing-person case and raise questions about whether Sam willingly disappeared. Molloy employs some of the most believable and jaw-dropping narrative twists since Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl in this smart, single-sitting read. Readers will be flipping back to see just how she performed the sleight of hand right in front of their eyes. VERDICT Along with a rip-roaring suspense plot, Molloy adds depth with critiques of gender conventions that causes readers to investigate the assumptions they bring to the text. She breathes new life into the unreliable narrator thriller genre in a book everyone will be talking about.--Jon Jeffryes, Grand Valley State Univ., MI

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