The perfect
crime. Nothing can go wrong, it has been perfectly thout-out. But then, all is a
mess. Anne and Marco are at a party at their neighbours’. Their baby daughter
is at home, alone since the babysitter cancelled at short notice. But what can
happen with the parents just next door and checking on the girl every 30
minutes? However, when they finally come home at half past one in the morning, the
front door is ajar and the girl is gone. For the police, the parents immediately
are among the suspects – and neither Anne nor Marco know whom to trust anymore.
It soon becomes obvious that both of them have kept some secrets, but they are
not the only ones with something to hide.
Shari Lapena
has constructed a thriller which really is worth calling it one. Dropping hints
here and there you quickly realize that you cannot be sure about any of the
characters and that there is much more at stake than just an abducted girl. New
information every so often makes you reconstruct your idea of what really
happened in that night. You have just finished adjusting your thesis and it is
gone. Towards the end, an even larger conspiracy comes out which is a real surprise
but makes perfectly sense.
What I
appreciated about the novel was not only that it could surprise me more than
once, but especially the way the characters were drawn. None of the one-dimensional
they all had different shades of good and bad, of reckless and compassionate
which made them appear quite lively. The plot is very well constructed, it is
full of suspense and keeps you reading on the find out what is all behind. To
me, it was entertainment at its best.
