This is my third time reading the work of Shari Lapena and she never disappoints. This time around we read of a suburban neighborhood in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Olivia Sharpe is married to Paul and the mother of sixteen year old Raleigh. She is dismayed when she learns that her ‘good son‘ Raleigh, has been breaking into the homes of her neighbors. He says that he didn’t ‘take’ anything. He was only testing himself to see if he could. It was an adrenaline rush. Also, he was practicing computer hacking. A wiz with technology, Raleigh wanted to see if he could break into other people’s password protected computers. Distraught, she writes anonymous letters of apology to her neighbors.

Little does Olivia know, but one of the houses he broke in to was the house of Robert and Amanda Pierce. The beautiful Mrs. Pierce’s body has just been found in the trunk of a submerged car. Her husband Robert seems shifty, and of course the first person blamed is always the husband. However, in this instance there are myriad possible suspects. And to make matters worse, it is quite likely “Someone We Know“!

Several of the neighbors are hiding salacious secrets. Sixteen year old Raleigh has discovered some of these secrets during his forays into their homes…  At the time of her brutal murder, Amanda was twelve weeks pregnant.

The author has created a seemingly typical suburban neighborhood and peopled it with  seemingly typical families – by and large they are nice people. However… what goes on behind closed doors in this neighborhood is far from typical. Everyone seems to have something to hide.

Some of the themes touched upon are adultery, parenting of teenagers, deception, friendship, and loyalty. It examines just how far a person will go to protect those that they love.

The characters are very realistic, and the situations believable. Shocking at times, but believable. It aptly demonstrated just how stressful, arduous, and heart-breaking it can sometimes be to parent a teenager. The personalities of the police were not really fleshed out, but they were not the primary focus of the book. It was the various neighbors that were the stars of the show.

After the whodunit story-line was brought to a satisfying conclusion, the author threw in another final twist that will please most readers.

A page turner, this domestic thriller kept my enthralled. I highly recommend this novel to all fans of the genre.

This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel at my request from Pamela Dorman Books/Random House  via Edelweiss.

ISBN: 9780525557654 –  ASIN:  B07NCJCDKQ –  304 pages

Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know and The End of Her. She was a lawyer and an English teacher before turning her hand to fiction. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Follow Shari Lapena on Twitter @sharilapena