Who to Believe, by Edwin Hill OCT2023 LTER
Talk Reviews of Early Reviewers Books
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1LyndaInOregon
The murder of a woman in a small New England town opens a malignant Pandora’s Box of secrets, lies, and betrayals.
Hill takes this reliable setup and uses it, via rotating first-person narrators, to explore the secret lives of half a dozen people intimately involved in a series of brutal killings driven by narcissism, fear of exposure, and even a kind of inside-out vigilantism. “Who to Believe” is more than a title – it’s a cautionary note to the reader, because most of the characters in this tightly-packed novel have only a nodding acquaintance with the truth.
If there’s a problem with the book, it’s that it’s hard to find anyone to root for, with the possible exception of 13-year-old Chloe, whose family life goes from bad to worse as Hill’s other protagonists and victims trade places in an intricate dance of betrayal, deception, and violence. And, if one wants to be picky, it all slots together just a shade too slickly. There’s no reason to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon here, because no one is more than two degrees away from murder.
Readers interested in character development will find a lot to chew on as each character slowly reveals more and more of their inner self, and fans of whodunnits will have a ball, trying to foresee all the twists and turns. But if you’re looking for true nail-biting suspense or brilliant crime-solving tales, you’re going to need to keep looking.
Hill takes this reliable setup and uses it, via rotating first-person narrators, to explore the secret lives of half a dozen people intimately involved in a series of brutal killings driven by narcissism, fear of exposure, and even a kind of inside-out vigilantism. “Who to Believe” is more than a title – it’s a cautionary note to the reader, because most of the characters in this tightly-packed novel have only a nodding acquaintance with the truth.
If there’s a problem with the book, it’s that it’s hard to find anyone to root for, with the possible exception of 13-year-old Chloe, whose family life goes from bad to worse as Hill’s other protagonists and victims trade places in an intricate dance of betrayal, deception, and violence. And, if one wants to be picky, it all slots together just a shade too slickly. There’s no reason to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon here, because no one is more than two degrees away from murder.
Readers interested in character development will find a lot to chew on as each character slowly reveals more and more of their inner self, and fans of whodunnits will have a ball, trying to foresee all the twists and turns. But if you’re looking for true nail-biting suspense or brilliant crime-solving tales, you’re going to need to keep looking.
