Kubica plays an exquisite long game, eventually unifying the characters in ways which conflict with the certainties of which a reader has convinced the self. In addition to Sadie and her ongoing discomfort in her new community, further unmoored by the murder of her next-door neighbour almost synchronous with her family’s arrival, there is Camille, Will’s adulterous partner, who has apparently followed him to Maine expecting to carry on the affair, and poor Mouse, victimised by her evil stepmother.

Narrated by a trio of seemingly disparate female voices in interspersing chapters, the constant is anxiety, panic and determined anger. Inherited along with the house, granted to Will following the suicide of his sister (a circumstance mired in more than a little mystery), Imogen takes a quick, antagonistic dislike to Sadie, who is alarmed that the damaged girl (as she discovered the grisly aftermath) may know more about her mother’s death than she claims. Not quite ever finding her footing in the tiny island hamlet, feeling exiled and cut off from a mainland, Sadie must also contend with vaguely hostile neighbours, combative colleagues at her doctoral practice and, especially, the near-homicidal moodiness of Will’s orphan niece Imogen. A family in crisis, their turmoil is a perfect mirror of Sadie’s initial thought-the same sensibility may be applied to this troubled clan.

She and her family (husband Will and sons Otto and Tate) have relocated from Chicago quite suddenly, fleeing a collective mess of infidelity, delinquency, and work misconduct.

This is the opening observance of central character Sadie in regards to her new home in a tiny coastal town in Maine. She manages to undermine all expectation, destabilising the reader with a violently satisfying shift of grounding. Once a reader has processed the full impact of the closing chapters, reflection upon the turn of events reveals just how clever Kubica has been in structuring a credible psychological and practical framework for all preceding action and behaviour. As so much of this riveting thriller by author Mary Kubica hinges on a series of gargantuan, startling conclusive twists, it is incumbent upon a reviewer to honour the work by being as sensitive as possible in plot description and detail.

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