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Another Keeper

One author who is an auto-buy for me is Anne Frasier, and like all her work her most recent thriller The Night I Died does not disappoint.

The novel's plot revolves around private detective Olivia Welles, who barely survived a horrific car/train crash as a child and is facing the latest in a long line of surgeries to deal with the aftermath. Throughout the story Olivia references that life-altering night, and the many ways it has changed her and her fate, and this is really fascinating -- with a great deal of personal and medical efforts she survived, but it's shaped her in myriad ways -- some she's not even aware of herself. When one of the other children who survived that crash calls and asks for her help in proving she didn't kill her child, Olivia ends up returning to her childhood hometown in Kansas. You know all the secrets of the past are probably going to haunt her, and they do, but not in the way you assume.

Olivia is an experienced, level-headed detective, which helps when she runs into Will LaFever, the journalist son of a much more famous writer. Will behaves like a young, all over the place kid who has something to prove, and as such is very interested in her. He's also manipulative and, like most journalists, makes you want to give him a kick where it hurts boys. I didn't care for him at all. Yet as things begin to get weird and then scary, Will redeems himself a little, and turns into an interesting ally for Olivia.

I guessed the secret from the night Olivia died by the middle of the story -- I picked up on a few clues, purely by luck -- but it's not an obvious puzzle, or one that is easy to solve. When everything past and present blows up, and the truth is revealed, you'll probably get the feeling that you sensed it all along. There are references that can be triggering for those dealing with childhood abuse, so keep that in mind, but I think it's handled well. In the end I thought that The Night I Died was an excellent read that, unlike the very predictable, blase thrillers out there, anyone can enjoy.

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nightsmusic said…
Did you ever read her three book series that starts with The Body Reader? I thought it was excellent.

I put this one on my TBR list. She's not an auto buy for me. Not yet, but I read the sample and it looks interesting.
January 9, 2024 at 4:15 AM
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