Review: The Night Before

The Night Before by Wendy Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rosie's sister Laura moved in with her and her husband after a bad breakup. When Laura tries to reenter the dating world, she goes out with a man she met on a dating website and doesn't return home the next day. But are Rosie and Joe afraid of what her date did to Laura or what she did to him?

I was invited to read this on Netgalley and took St. Martin's up on the offer. I'm glad I did.

The Night Before is a tale of secrets, obsession, and the past acting as an anchor. Or is it? Laura is a woman on the run from her past, a past that saw her high school boyfriend beaten to death with a baseball bat and a mentally ill man convicted of the crime. But is that what really happened? As one of the characters says "You never really know what's lurking inside someone" or something to that effect.

The story is split into three timelines: Laura with her therapist months before, Laura on the night of, and Rosie after Laura has disappeared. It wound up being a great tool for building suspense. Misdirection is one of the hallmarks of a good thriller for me and I think Wendy Walker had my number from the first page. I made all the wrong assumptions based on the trail she laid down, just like most of the characters. I had an inkling something was amiss but couldn't lay my finger on it until it was way too late.

I'm a gumshoe from way back. I've read a few hundred mystery and suspense novels over the years. There's nothing I enjoy more than having an author pull the wool over my eyes and make me feel like a rube. Wendy Walker accomplished just that. Four out of five stars.

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