When a Harvard student Julie Patel is murdered, one of her professors, Storrow, falls to blame. The fact that he was dating a student, Georgia, was revealed through the investigation as well as through Georgia's jealous friend Alice's expose that she wrote following the murder. Beyond that, even students who had limited interaction with Storrow came forward with stories of interactions that seemed normal enough at the time, but odd in retrospect.
The novel is broken up into three parts: Harvard years, after Harvard, and ten years following the murder. The first section was excellent - full of suspense, mystery, and interesting characters. I was completely captivated and would've given the first section a five star rating. However, once I started the second section, things quickly went down hill. I kept expecting it to get better, but the characters' coincidental encounters just did not hold my interest. The book was screaming that the students had no reason to stay in touch after school, yet they kept going back to each other. By the third section, I couldn't wait for it to be over, since it was obvious nothing else would happen in the book.
If you're looking for a mystery that leaves you thinking "what just happened?" this might be it. I don't know how to interpret the ending, and it did not fulfil anything I was hoping to get from the conclusion of a mystery novel. If the first section hadn't been so good, the last two might not have seemed so bad, but at such a close comparison, I finished feeling very disappointed.
FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review. The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the product.
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