4 Stars
This suspense novel has a dual timeline and multiple perspectives.
In 2004, 17-year-old Tamara Drayton was found floating face-down in the pool of her family’s mansion along the Côte d’Azur. Josie Jackson, a frequent babysitter for 5-year-old Nina Drayton, is charged with Tamara’s murder and convicted, primarily because of Nina’s eyewitness testimony.
In 2024, on the twentieth anniversary of Tamara’s death, a true-crime documentary about her murder is announced. Now, with no memory of the incident to which she testified, Nina begins questioning her memories of that night. Did she send an innocent person to prison for ten years? Nina returns to France to meet with her brother Blake, Tamara’s twin, and Evelyn, her mother, to determine exactly what happened. At the same time, Josie returns as well to spend time with her brother. A meeting between Nina and Josie is inevitable.
The narrative moves back and forth between 2004 and 2024. In the first timeline, we learn about events leading up to the night of Evelyn’s birthday party when Tamara is killed. In 2024, we see the arrival of people connected to the tragedy of two decades earlier and the events that occur thereafter. In both time frames, the perspectives of various people are given, including those of Nina, Josie, Josie’s best friend Hannah Bailey, Tamara, and a TikTok true crime influencer. Occasionally the reader might be momentarily confused about which timeline is being described because similar events, like a birthday party for Evelyn, occur in both.
Obviously, the novel explores the unreliability of memory: how it can be affected and manipulated. As a child psychologist, Nina “knows about false memory, and about how trauma can create great, gaping holes in your vision of the past. She knows that people’s memories are the most accurate in the eleven months immediately after the event, and then become hazy afterward, complicated by retelling and rehashing a story.” There’s the additional problem of Nina’s age when she testified. A friend asks her, “’But if you don’t remember it . . . how do you know you weren’t making it up? Kids make things up all the time, right? They make believe. How do you know that you were telling the truth?’”
The book also touches on class differences. There are the Draytons, an ultra-rich family, and their equally wealthy friends. And then there are the locals like Josie and Hannah and their families who need to work hard and sometimes still struggle financially. Josie’s mother actually works for the Drayton family. The relationship between members of the two classes is definitely that of master and servant. Hannah, for instance, wants to be part of the privileged class but she is not accepted by them. I did find that the portrayal of the super rich is rather stereotypical; they feel entitled, lack high moral standards, and behave atrociously towards the lower classes if they notice them at all.
The pace at the beginning is slow but ramps up as revelations from the past build suspense. Early on I had strong suspicions as to the identity of the guilty party but I didn’t know the motive. My interest in continuing to read was to see if my suspicions would be confirmed. I did like how people’s actions and statements are often misinterpreted by others: what may seem as dismissal or rejection of someone may in fact be an attempt to protect that person. And more than one person adopts a persona not in keeping with their true natures.
This is a good summer read perfect for the beach, even if that beach is not on the Côte d’Azur. It has interesting characters and sufficient suspense, as well as some thematic depth.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
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