One Little Secret

May 1, 2019
A domestic thriller that's actually filled with lots of secrets, some of them pretty big. Their kids safely packed off to summer camp, three couples--ER physician Louis Murray and his wife, orthopedist-turned-TV sports commentator Jenny Murray; indifferently successful writer Ben Hansen and his wife, Rachel Klein, a lawyer; and venture capitalist Nadal Ahmadi and his wife, Susan, whose own law career is on hold while she home-schools their autistic son and supports her husband's app Doc2Go, with which he hopes to make a killing--head to an unseen Hamptons rental for some R&R. What they get instead is instant disappointment with the lodgings (though there's a great view of the beach), enough wine to take the edge off their sorrows, an escalating round of spats and accusations, and sudden death. When Rachel turns up strangled and drowned at water's edge, suddenly every little twitch of the survivors looks suspicious. Recently promoted DS Gabriella Watkins is pulled away from a party-rape accusation to the crime scene because the victim's torn swimsuit suggests the kind of assault Gabby's good at investigating. Not surprisingly, she finds beneath the vacationers' moneyed veneer a roiling stew of sins--adultery, abuse, threatened lawsuits--that make everyone look guilty, even if not of this particular crime. The surprise is that the alibi of Ben Hansen, whose heated quarrel with his wife sent her flouncing off to the beach, never to return, depends on his presence at the very party Gabby had been investigating, the one at which 18-year-old au pair Mariel Cruz woke up naked next to surfing banker Andrew Baird with no memory of how she'd ended up there. Holahan deploys a before-after-during-after-before-and-so-on series of perspectives that go a long way toward dissipating the suspense they're presumably meant to intensify. But her gimlet eye for the foibles of this particular social set is as unforgiving as in the much superior Lies She Told (2017).

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May 13, 2019
At the outset of this solidly plotted novel from Holahan (The Widower’s Wife), three racially diverse, upper-middle-class couples converge on a Hamptons beach house they are renting. Ben Hansen and Rachel Klein, Jenny and Louis Murray, Susan and Nadal Ahmadi—two lawyers, a doctor, a TV sports commentator who was once an orthopedist, and two stay-at-home parents—are neighbors whose backyards back home touch but who barely know each other. The weekend starts well with drinks and tasty food, but ends with the murder of one of the wives. Gabby Watkins, the sole black detective on the local police force, investigates. The action remains strong as it touches on infidelity, betrayal, abuse, bad business dealings, and underhanded lawsuits. But most of the characters are unfocused until halfway through the story. Only Gabby is consistently well developed as she deals with racism and sexism in the department and in town. Still, Holahan does a fine job portraying fraying marriages and artificial friendships. Agent: Paula Munier, Talcott Notch Literary.

June 7, 2019

While their children are at summer camp, three couples meet at a beach house in the Hamptons. They don't know one another well, but at the end of the night, after drinking too much wine, secrets are spilled and one person is dead. DS Gabby Watkins suspects each of the other people in turn. Is the killer the husband whose alibi was attendance at a party with underage drinkers? What about the abusive husband, or the victim of that abuse who tries to hide it? Maybe it was the man whose start-up is threatened by a lawsuit, or the stay-at-home mother of two boys homeschooling a son on the autism spectrum. Gabby will stumble through a series of mistakes as her investigation collides with another case, a party in which there may have been drugged drinks and sexual assault. This unconventional psychological thriller alternates between views of the day of the murder and the day after to reveal secrets that could destroy marriages and lives. VERDICT Holahan's latest stand-alone (after Lies She Told) is a great beach read for those with a penchant for scandalous secrets and gossipy, suspenseful mysteries.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2019
Three couples, neighbors in Westchester, New York, travel to the Hamptons to vacation, where they will share a rental home while their children attend camp. The six include sportscaster Jenny, her doctor husband Louis, stay-at-home dad Ben and his lawyer wife Rachel, and homeschooling mom Susan and her entrepreneur husband Nadal. Arguments erupt and dark secrets emerge among these entwined couples, ending in the murder of one of the women. Newly promoted Detective Sergeant Gabby Watkins is tasked with uncovering the murderer as well as the person who drugged and raped a teenager at a party. Multiple plot twists keep the pages turning as Gabby investigates, slowly unraveling the many relationships among the six as things in the house go from bad to worse, and marriages begin to crumble. Gabby is a conscientious detective who must deal with jealous colleagues and her anger as her family becomes part of her investigation. With well-drawn characters, this absorbing page-turner, told from multiple points of view, alternates effectively between recent past and present.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)