Someone Else's Husband

by Kimberly McCreight

New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight delivers a tour de force of character-driven suspense: the story of two women whose secrets and desires entrap them in a deadly love triangle.

You had to rely on the power of love. That he loved you enough not to do the thing that would break your heart.

It was paper-thin ice on which to stake your survival.

Gretchen Falk, a Park Avenue sophisticate born into great wealth and blessed with a storybook marriage, knows she lives a charmed life, and she’s not about to risk losing any part of it. That’s why she tried to convince Richard, her devoted husband and father to their three children, not to join his old college friends on an expedition almost eight thousand miles away, to the imposing peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. Little did she know the beautiful artist climbing alongside him might prove the far greater danger.

Frankie Callahan’s dream of artistic success is within reach, with her career-making exhibition at a celebrated New York gallery only weeks away. If all goes well, the show will leave her financially independent, free of the tainted money that ties her to a past—and a man—she’s desperate to escape. To mark the end of this chapter, she is going to climb Kilimanjaro. But when she learns she’s the sole female accompanying a group of male friends, Frankie realizes that nothing about the trip will be as she expected. She certainly hasn’t counted on meeting anyone like the very charismatic, very rich, very married Richard Falk. By the time the group descends—with one fewer than when they began—they have lost more than they ever could have imagined.

Now, just two weeks after returning to New York, Frankie is dead, her East Village loft a blood-soaked crime scene. When Richard is charged in Frankie’s death, it falls to Gretchen to piece together how the life she so carefully constructed could have imploded so completely. There are only two things Gretchen knows for she’s the only woman Richard has ever loved, and he would never hurt anyone.

Someone Else’s Husband is the sweeping and suspenseful story of two women on a collision course with love—and with each other—in which no one is right and everyone is very, very wrong.

Genres: Thriller, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Audiobook, Suspense, Contemporary

352 pages, Hardcover

First published June 16, 2026

About the author

Kimberly McCreight is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels including RECONSTRUCTING AMELIA, A GOOD MARRIAGE and LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER. SOMEONE ELSE'S HUSBAND is forthcoming from Knopf June 16, 2026. She has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Alex awards and her books have been translated into more than twenty languages and optioned for film and television. She attended Vassar College and graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She lives in Brooklyn. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook and at kimberlymccreight.com

Reviews

[Dutchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic character driven mystery that once got going was impossible to put down!

Gretchen’s husband, Richard, has just been arrested for another woman’s murder. Gretchen is completely blindsided and refuses to believe that her husband would have an affair, much less murder somebody. She begins to dig into Richard’s relationship with the victim. The victim, Frankie, had met Richard when they both were assigned to the same tour group to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. The details of this trip are shown from Frankie‘s point of view.

The novel explores the relationship between Gretchen and her husband as well as Frankie and “someone else’s husband”. The crime itself, while prevalent, takes a backseat and focuses more on the character aspect.

This was a slow-burn, character-driven mystery. I think with so many books, there is a reliance upon jaw dropping twists and OTT endings. This did not rely on any of that and made for just a really good, realistic read. I didn’t realize I missed those kinds of novels until I read this one.

I have read the other previously and enjoyed her novels, and this one is no exception.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Jayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

➡️ This sleek, razor-sharp domestic thriller kicks into high gear when a husband is accused of murder after returning from a climbing trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Is he guilty or innocent?

➡️ What elevated this novel above standard legal thrillers and neighborhood noir?
The characterizations of the author's deeply flawed protagonists were stellar. All had complex motivations that drove the narrative forward and kept me guessing, from start to finish.

Shifting perspectives were handled masterfully, making every voice feel distinct, authentic, and untrustworthy as the scandalous murder investigation unraveled.

🔷 The final twist made this book a standout.
(I dare you to guess the ending!) Just when you think you've mapped out the web of secrets and lies surrounding the murder investigation, the rug is pulled out in a final twist that lands perfectly.

🔷 ATTENTION AUDIOBOOK LOVERS:
This audiobook has 13 narrators!
Multicast narrations are always a treat, and all 13 narrators gave Oscar-worthy performances. Kudos to narrators Elena Rey, Annette Amelia Oliveira, Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Dan Bittner, Will Damron, Leanne Woodward, Chris Andrew Ciulla, George Newbern, Giordan Diaz, Max Meyers, Jane Oppenheimer, and Kristen DiMercurio for their superb performances.

Before this book's release, the author wowed me with "A Good Marriage" (2020), but her subsequent releases fell short—UNTIL NOW.

4.5 Stars

[L A · Rating 4 out of 5]

"New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight delivers a tour de force of character-driven suspense: the story of two women whose secrets and desires entrap them in a deadly love triangle.
You had to rely on the power of love. That he loved you enough not to do the thing that would break your heart. It was paper-thin ice on which to stake your survival."
Gretchen and Richard live highly in their Park Avenue property. Once, a beautiful love story with 3 children, that is about to change.
When Richard goes on a climbing outing with his friends to Mount Kilimanjaro, he meets the beautiful and talented Frankie. She is the only woman on the adventure and finds herself getting closer to Richard even when she knows he is married. When the trip ended, the friendship did not. Gretchen and Richard were woken in the middle of the night to police arresting Richard for the murder of Frankie. Gretchen is stunned and throughout the book she weighs what could have gone wrong and is hoping to find him innocence. The lies keep spewing and the police are a step ahead of all of them until that final twist. There are so many things that begin to add up in Gretchen's head alerting to what was in front of her all along.
I found it hard to stop listening to the audio. The suspense is time worth reading. It has an outstanding cast of narrators: Elena Rey, Annette Amelia Oliveira, Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Dan Bittner, Will Damron, Leanne Woodward, Chris Andrew Ciulla, George Newbern, Giordan Diaz, Max Meyers, Jane Oppenheimer, and Kristen DiMercurio.
Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for this incredible ARC in exchange for my review.

[Sara G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid 4 ⭐️

Someone Else's Husband by Kimberly McCreight is a slow-burn, twisty mystery that had me constantly shifting my suspicions.

The story revolves around two total opposites: Gretchen, a meticulously composed Park Avenue elite, and Frankie, a free-spirited artist. Their worlds collide when Frankie ends up as the only woman on a guys' trip to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with Gretchen’s husband, Richard. When Frankie is later found murdered and Richard is arrested for the crime, both women's hidden secrets are forced into the light.

Because it's told through dual POVs, you get a closer look at both women. They are both deeply flawed, but McCreight makes them so easy to empathize with that it makes their messy drama incredibly compelling to read. Plus, with the story interspersed with police interviews, grand jury transcripts and anonymous journal entries you are constantly sorting through the puzzle pieces. Frankie is guarding plenty of her own past secrets, and this mixed-media structure ensures you never really know who to trust or what actually happened.

The tension builds perfectly, leading to a final showdown where all the secrets crash together flawlessly and watching all of those puzzle pieces finally click into place is incredibly satisfying. Anyone who loves messy domestic drama will definitely want to pick this up.

Available now! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Reisa Bolog · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this as an Arc because I liked another of her books. But this story did not catch my attention. It was so drawn out and so many unnecessary details. I feel like if the author just went with the Kilimanjaro story, it would have been much better. Way too long and the chapters were extremely long winded.

[R L HERSKOWITZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.
Exciting Kilimanjaro climb.
Unique and wonderful format.
Excellent writing.

I highly recommend Someone Else’s Husband!

[Nikki Lee (Nikkileethrillseeker) · Rating 4 out of 5]

🎧Audiobook Review🎧

Let’s talk about the audiobook first. This cast put on an excellent performance! The two main female characters performed as actors and it was as if I was listening to a movie play out. Bravo 👏👏👏👏. If you have both options to listen and read, I highly recommend the audiobook. However, I don’t recommend you speeding it up due to the fact there’s many players and lots going on. I listened at 1.6x and never missed a beat.

After Richard returns from an expedition up Mount Kilimanjaro, he is charged with murdering Frankie Callahan. She, too, was on that expedition with a group of men. Richard’s wife, Gretchen can’t believe he’s capable of hurting anyone.

The story is told from Gretchen’s after the murder and Frankie’s before. I kept trying to put the pieces together and couldn’t stop listening to the story. It’s highly suspenseful and will keep you entertained.

Out next Tuesday and I definitely recommend it to thriller fans. I really enjoyed it.

4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pub date 6/16

[Dallas Strawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Give Kimberly McCreight a complex marriage to dissect and she’ll give you a five-star thriller every single time. No questions asked. It’s what she does best.

I loved seeing her tackle the “rich people behaving badly” trope in her latest character driven, slow burn banger of a summer novel, SOMEONE ELSE’S HUSBAND.

When the impossibly wealthy Falk family is jolted awake in the middle of the night by police arriving with a warrant to search their property following the death of a “new friend” the husband had just climbed Kilimanjaro with, the stage is set for an utterly addictive mystery. Told through multiple POVs and a carefully layered timeline of before and after, you’ll constantly be asking yourself, Did he do it… or didn’t he?

Kimberly McCreight’s fiction is firing on all cylinders here, and that ending? She got me. Completely.

SOMEONE ELSE’S HUSBAND is going to make a phenomenal book club pick this summer. The conversations, the theories, the debates… this is the kind of thriller that keeps people talking long after they turn the final page.

[K~Terror · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️ | This is definitely a slow burn mystery that wraps up amazingly quickly at the very end. I enjoyed the journey but I’m still am pondering the ending.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very much a character first psychological suspense, not a high octane twist machine—and that’s what makes it stand out.
The storytelling is structured in a way that slowly peels back truth through shifting perspectives. Gretchen’s present day narrative carries a sense of disbelief and denial, while Frankie’s earlier timeline adds emotional depth and context that steadily reframes everything you think you know.
The police interview elements also add a grounded, procedural texture without taking over the emotional core of the story.

What works really well here is the controlled pacing. It doesn’t rush toward shock value. Instead, it builds unease through contradiction—what people say versus what they remember, what they believe versus what actually happened. It also avoids the over the top thriller trap. The tension comes from human decisions, emotional blind spots, and the slow realization that every character is filtering the truth through their own needs.

By the time everything clicks into place, the ending feels less like a twist for effect and more like a carefully constructed inevitability. Even when surprising, it feels earned. If there’s one thing to note, it’s that the pacing might feel deliberate or even restrained if you’re expecting constant escalation, but that restraint is intentional and part of the book’s strength.
Overall, this is a smart, layered domestic suspense novel that prioritizes psychology over spectacle.


Perfect for Readers Who Love:

* Slow burn psychological suspense
* Multiple POV domestic thrillers
* Unreliable perception narratives
* Character driven mysteries
* Realistic, grounded crime fiction
* Books like The Wife Between Us or The Last Thing He Told Me

[booked.with.julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pretty much went into this blind and I loved it!
It hooked me from the beginning.

A knock on your door in the middle of the night is never good. When Gretchen’s husband is arrested for murder, her entire world is turned upside down. As they investigate, secrets start to unfold and it seems like everyone is hiding something. I loved the dual timelines, I was so invested in figuring out what happened before and connecting it to now.

A smart and twisty domestic thriller that kept me guessing til the end!! You’ll definitely want to pick this one up.

[Helô · Rating 3 out of 5]

The audiobook is great but the plot twist was weak imo

[The Bookish Elf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gretchen Falk has spent thirty-four years building something close to perfect. A Fifth Avenue co-op across from the Guggenheim, a husband who still looks at her the way he did in their college art history lecture, three grown children, and the kind of money that makes most problems disappear before breakfast. Then the doorbell rings at three in the morning, the police are crowding the hallway with a search warrant, and there is a dead woman's name printed on it. Frankie Callahan, an artist Richard Falk met while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro only weeks earlier. By sunrise, Gretchen is shivering in her Natori pajamas on a precinct bench, and the life she arranged as carefully as a gallery wall is sliding sideways.

That is the engine of Someone Else's Husband by Kimberly McCreight, and it runs hot from the opening pages. The hook is sturdy, the question underneath it sharper than the marketing suggests: not simply did he do it, but how much of a marriage is faith, and how much is a story two people agree to keep telling.

Two Women, One Mountain, and Nobody Wearing a Halo

The novel splits its loyalties between two women who are nothing alike and uncomfortably similar. Gretchen narrates the "After," a wealthy wife who has learned to weaponize the low expectations men have of her, sipping iced contempt at a detective while her world burns. Frankie narrates the "Before" in first person, a Colorado-raised painter on the cusp of the gallery show that could finally cut her loose from tainted money and a man she has been running from since she was seventeen.

McCreight refuses to hand you a heroine. Gretchen can be a snob, brittle and cosseted, yet her fierceness is magnetic. Frankie is raw and self-aware, funny about her own bad decisions even as she keeps making them. Both are clever. Both are lying, to themselves more than to anyone else. The promise in the blurb that "no one is right and everyone is very, very wrong" is one the author actually delivers.

The Men on the Mountain

The Dartmouth crew who drag Richard up Kilimanjaro are drawn quickly but well. There is the affable lawyer Scotty, the wellness entrepreneur Van protecting his brand, the trust-fund golden boy whose fortunes have curdled. The expedition chapters are some of the strongest in the book, all thin air and thinner pretenses, where altitude strips away the polish men spend their lives applying.

Built Like a Case File: Structure and Suspense

The cleverest thing about Someone Else's Husband by Kimberly McCreight is its architecture. The two timelines, present-day fallout and the long fuse leading up to it, are braided with police interview transcripts, grand jury testimony, and brief second-person interludes from a narrator circling a terrible night. It reads like assembling a case while the crime is still rearranging itself in front of you.

McCreight, a Penn Law graduate, knows her way around a deposition, and the legal documents do real work. They drip-feed information, undercut what a character just told you in a glossy monologue, and let you catch people in the gap between what they say under oath and what they confess in their own heads. When the structure clicks, the suspense is genuinely earned rather than manufactured by withholding.

What McCreight Gets Exactly Right

There is a lot to admire here, and the praise is specific rather than polite:

Voice. Gretchen's chapters crackle with social comedy. McCreight skewers Park Avenue (the Cartier panther watch, the Pilates instructor, the prenup her father insisted on) with an eye so precise it stings.
The marriage at the center. The flashback to Richard hitting on Gretchen in a Sonic Youth T-shirt with a pencil box is so disarming you understand the whole thirty-four years in one scene.
Moral murk. Nobody here is a victim or a villain in any clean way, which keeps you guessing about loyalties as much as facts.
Pacing in the back half. Once the documents and timelines start colliding, the story tightens its grip and refuses to loosen it.
Where the Climb Gets Thin

The four-star consensus feels right, because the book is very good without being flawless, and the flaws are worth naming:

A crowded middle. Several of the male climbers blur together early on, and a reader can lose track of who is who before the mountain sorts them out.
Coincidence doing heavy lifting. A couple of plot hinges depend on timing and chance that strain belief if you stop to poke at them, and the back half asks you to poke less.
The villainy tips its hand. Attentive thriller readers may sense the shape of certain reveals before the characters do, which dulls a few intended shocks.
Gretchen's privilege as comedy and obstacle. Her obliviousness is funny, but it occasionally keeps the emotional stakes at arm's length when the story wants you closer.

None of these sink the book. They are the difference between a thriller that satisfies and one that haunts.

The Verdict Without the Stars

Smart, slippery, and unafraid of women who behave badly, this is a thriller that respects your intelligence even when it withholds. It asks how well anyone can know the person sleeping beside them, and answers in a way that lingers past the final page. A few coincidences and a slightly muddled cast keep it from greatness, but the writing is too sharp and the structure too inventive to dismiss. For readers who like their suspense braided with social bite, McCreight has delivered a strong, satisfying night under the covers with the flashlight on.

[Diane OLeary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard and Gretchen are a wealthy couple blessed with a seemingly perfect long standing marriage. 5 weeks ago Richard joined his male college friends and a female newcomer, Frankie, on a mountain climbing expedition where one of the men "accidentally" died after a fall. Shortly after the trip Frankie is brutally murdered and Richard is arrested for the crime. Gretchen is a person who dismisses anything she doesn't want to believe and she doesn't want to believe that there was an affair between Richard and Frankie nor that Richard murdered the woman. This was a delicious puzzle to solve with many fascinating characters and all of them have secrets and sinister motivations. Kimberly McCreight has created a fast paced and suspenseful thriller that keeps you guessing until the end. I have enjoyed KM's previous books but this one is my favorite and I highly recommend it. 4.5 stars.

[Corinne Carson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of twists & turns and red herrings scatterred throughtout that kept me guessing. This was a slow burn character-driven story where you had a lot of characters to keep up with. When one of those characters is murdered, we get a whodunnit. It starts right off the bat with a knock on the door of Richard & Gretchen’s NYC apartment in the middle of the night with a warrant to search their home. Both are totally caught off-guard and have no clue as to what’s going on. Midway through the book, I found it to drag a bit, but it was overall an entertaining read. If you like whodunnits, wealthy people drama, then this one’s for you.

Thank you to NetGalley & Knopf for the opportunity to read an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

[Sherri Thacker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kimberly McCreight is an automatic author who I love to read. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, I know I’m going to love it! Richard is married to Gretchen but he’s been arrested for another woman’s murder. Part of it took place hiking up to Kilimanjaro and I swear I felt like I was on the hike myself!!!!! Holy cow, the ending was not what I was expecting and a total shocker!!!! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early release in exchange for my honest review. Looking forward to her next thriller. She’s great!

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this author! This book is well written with great descriptions and dialogue. I didn’t see the twist and that’s the best part of any book.

[Jen Ryland (jenrylandreviews & yaallday)]

Read my full review of Someone Else's Husband, with Jen's Quick Take to help you decide if the book is for you AND protected spoilers on Jen Ryland Reviews


I'm a big fan of Kimberly McCreight's books. I love the NYC settings, the messy family dynamics, and the legal elements. I have mixed feelings about Someone Else's Husband.

This book had a narrative structure that ranged from complex to confusing, with a lot of time jumping and many narrative POVs. The twist is made possible by a LOT of information withheld from the reader, so I'm recommending this to suspense readers and advising that readers that want a book that plays fair and lays out all the information may be infuriated by this.

I did enjoy it, because in some ways the book DOES play very fair, doling out clues that made it possible for me to guess a lot of the ending. Always a fan of books that make me think hard, and this author always writes books that are smart and interesting.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an advance copy for review!

[Vito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy publication week! Sharing my review from March.

Addictive and mysterious, this dual POV and timeline from Kimberly McCreight will keep you (mostly) guessing until the last page.

“Someone Else’s Husband” follows Gretchen and Frankie, connected by their relationship with the titular “husband,” Richard, with the former married to him and the latter in a mysterious relationship with him. Gretchen is there when her husband is taken into custody for the murder of Frankie, who Richard befriended on an all-boys (and one girl) trip to Tanzania to climb Mount. Kilimanjaro. Over the course of the novel, Gretchen spirals trying to figure out what happened between the two. Elsewhere, we are in the past with Frankie, both on the mountain and days before her murder. This dual perspective and timeline works here, the tapestry becoming clearer as Frankie’s timeline inches closer to present day (and Gretchen works backwards as a cos play-detective.) I could feel how desperate these two women were, with Frankie not only struggling with her growing friendship (or something more) with Richard as well as the mysterious texts and stalker over her shoulder. There’s something similar happening with Gretchen but the stakes felt greater for Frankie.

It’s not perfect, though. Besides the lull in the middle, the over-explanation of Mount Kilimanjaro, the author also leaves one key element out of reach until very late in the game that lets the cat out of the bag, all but spoiling how this one ends. I won’t reveal it here but as soon as more details around the crime become more clear (or murky in this case), despite how firm detectives are in the beginning, you kind of know where you’re heading. I’m glad, ultimately, given the circumstances. But damn me and my thriller genre jadedness, though!

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, for the ARC.

[Adina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, Knopf publishing & Kimberly McCreight for this digital ARC.

Someone Else’s Husband is a smart, twisty thriller that kept me guessing from start to finish. Kimberly McCreight did an excellent job scattering red herrings throughout the story - just when I thought I had the killer figured out, another clue or character detail sent me in a completely different direction. I love when a book keeps me on my toes like that. The pacing is tight, the tension builds steadily, and the final twist was absolutely worth the ride. It landed in that perfect sweet spot of surprising yet believable, the kind of reveal that makes you rethink everything that came before it. Overall, this was a gripping, well‑crafted thriller with plenty of misdirection and a payoff that delivers.

[Trisha]

I love this author! Can't wait to read this!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[♡Heather✩Brown♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it 4.5

#ad much love for my finished copy @aaknopf #partner
& @prhaudio #partner for the ALC

🆂🅾🅼🅴🅾🅽🅴 🅴🅻🆂🅴’🆂 🅷🆄🆂🅱🅰🅽🅳
< @
ʀᴇʟᴇᴀꜱᴇꜱ ᴊᴜɴᴇ 𝟣𝟨, 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟨

𝐼'𝑚 𝑎 𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑏𝑜𝑥.

It was a trip they would never forget - a getaway with a group of old college friends and one unexpected addition, a stranger who ended up joining them. Then tragedy struck, and one of the men died. Now back home, everyone is struggling to move on from what happened. But when Frankie - the woman who was on that trip - is found later found murdered, the questions only multiply.

What really happened during that trip? How is Frankie connected to it all? And what secrets are still waiting to come to light?

🎧: Also followed along the the audio and highly recommend for this one! Full cast yo with Elena Rey, Annette Amelia Oliveira, Samantha Desz, Jonathan Todd Ross, Dan Bittner, Will Damron, Leanne Woodward, Chris Andrew Ciulla, George Newbern, Giordan Diaz, Max Meyers, Jane Oppenheimer, and Kristen DiMercurio. Each was perfect if their role making this a fabulous listen.

This book hooked me immediately. It opens with a loud pounding on the door in the middle of the night - every parent’s worst nightmare. Richard and Gretchen Falk’s lives are about to change forever. At first, they fear the worst, but the truth is something entirely different: the police are there with a search warrant for their home.

The story alternates between the present-day investigation and the events leading up to the tragedy. I loved this structure because it allowed the mystery to unfold from both angles. As pieces from the past and present gradually came together, the story felt satisfyingly full-circle.

𝕄𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖:
Encyclopedia Brown 🤣👏🏼👏🏼
Ants 😂😂🤣
"Mom, JC I'm in a cult!" Lololol

Loved there was a little twist thrown in about halfway through. There was always something that would pop up randomly and pull me all the way back into the story. Enjoyed the journey of getting to know Frankie and Gretchen - great character devolvement.

I also enjoyed the police interviews and grand jury testimony. While this is definitely a slower-paced thriller, it kept me invested from beginning to end - which is saying something, since I don’t typically gravitate toward slower mysteries.

I definitely recommend this one to those who enjoy character-driven mysteries, layered investigations, and slow-burn suspense that gradually reveals its secrets.

[Marisa Thalberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really engaging page-turner that had more character substance than I think the title and cover would suggest. The story opens with the police visiting the Upper East Side duplex home of Richard and Gretchen Falk, a long married couple with grown children. She was raised with wealth; he achieved additional wealth as a top Goldman Sachs exec. That perfect life is thrown into chaos as Richard is hauled off, accused of the murder of artist Frankie Callahan, whom he met just weeks earlier when she was the lone additional member of a group that had Richard and his friends climbing Kilimanjaro.

Moving primarily between Gretchen and Frankie’s perspectives in the “before” and “after,” and pulling in the characters of the 3 Falk children, as well as friends Brooks, Scotty and Van, I was really drawn in by the sequences climbing Kilimanjaro (inspired by the author’s own trek where she wound up the one woman with a group of guy friends). Tragedy on the mountain is just one of the many developments that all come careening together as the book reaches its climax. You’ll be guessing a lot before then.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an ARC of this book; I really enjoyed it.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 ⭐️

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this one as it opens with a cold-blooded murder and twists its way through multiple subjects who all had reason to want Frankie dead! We see each of them and their relationships with Frankie, It's tense, riveting, and creepy as we witness the lies and deception involved in desperation. I raced through it as It's impossible to put down!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

[Shannon Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic!!

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5 stars ✨

[Keri Gilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you ever put on a movie while you’re doing other things, and it’s just playing in the background… until you realize you have no idea what’s going on and you actually need to sit down and pay attention? That’s exactly what happened to me with this book.

I was reading two books at the same time, and I quickly realized this one needed my full attention.

It’s told in dual POV and across multiple timelines, so you really have to keep up or you’ll get lost. Trust me.

The chapters were a little longer than what I usually prefer, but it wasn’t too bad. What I did struggle with was connecting to the characters, and I’m not entirely sure why.

The story itself was interesting. It follows Gretchen, who is married to Richard, a Goldman Sachs executive, and living that polished New York socialite life. Then there’s Frankie, the other woman. The story moves between Gretchen and Frankie’s perspectives as Gretchen starts to realize her life may not be as perfect as she thought. With Richard’s arrest for the supposed murder of Frankie, we get court testimony, police interviews, and even diary entries woven into the story.

This really turns into a full-on whodunit. I want to say I was surprised by the outcome, but I wasn’t. I started to piece things together as I was reading.

Overall, this was a 3.5⭐ read for me. It was good, but not great.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher & the author for sending me an ARC to review.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75 stars

This one didn’t suck me in and the subject matter didn't interest me like I thought it would. I also found the plot and "whodunnit" of it all to be predictable. The details of the ending seemed pretty far fetched… and I didn’t find myself caring about the characters at all (Gretchen was especially insufferable to me).

I think that Kimberly McCreight is a great author and her books are well written- this one just turned out to be a miss for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this arc!

[Nina Martinez (PlotTwistsyChisme) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley, Kimberly McCreight, Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Kimberly McCreight book, and let me tell you right now, it will definitely not be my last. Solid 4 star domestic thriller.

I love a thriller that keeps me suspicious of various characters, and this one delivered. McCreight does an excellent job creating complex, layered characters who all seem capable of keeping dangerous secrets. I spent the entire book changing my mind about who I trusted and who I thought was responsible. In the end, I was actually right about the main reveal, which always gives me a little thrill as a mystery reader, but there were still several aspects of the ending that completely caught me off guard. I definitely did not see all of it coming.

This is a very character driven thriller, which is one of my favorite kinds. The tension comes as much from the relationships and personal histories as it does from the mystery itself. The chapters were a little longer than I typically prefer, but honestly, the story was so gripping that it never affected my enjoyment. Every time I put my Kindle down, I found myself wanting to pick it right back up to see what would happen next.

Overall, this was a solid four star read for me. Great characters, plenty of suspicion, a few surprises I didn’t see coming, and a mystery that kept me engaged from beginning to end. I'm already looking into more of Kimberly McCreight's other books, and if I can make it to her author event in Houston, I'll absolutely be buying a copy for my thriller shelf.