FRIENDS LIKE THESE by Kimberly McCreight is the story of a group of friends who have accumulated their secrets over the years - together and separately - and it seems time has come to pay the piper. After reading A GOOD MARRIAGE by Kimberly McCreight, I was excited for whatever came next. I thought the twists and turns in that book were exceptional, and I just loved her writing style.
This book was told from several points of view, most notably the "friends" in this book, as well as the detective who is investigating the friends’ most recent "secret." Although there were several points of view, I found this story very easy to read, and the different characters were easy to keep track of for me. The secondary storyline involved a detective who lost her sister when she was younger, and the unsolved murder still haunts her.
None of the people in FRIENDS LIKE THESE were particularly likable, but their stories were definitely something to gossip about and speculate on, and I like that in a thriller. The friendships here were tenuous, some better than others, but the loyalty was unquestionable. But it would have to be rock solid if secrets were to be kept. I thought the events of the past were interesting and mysterious, leaving you to wonder if that really was the way things were happening, and they were weaved into the story between chapters of the present leading up to the current secret the friends were keeping and the investigation. There were a lot of twists and turns that I didn’t necessarily see coming, but they weren’t jaw-dropping, and the big twist at the end, while unexpected, wasn’t the shock factor I was hoping for. It felt like a thriller trope that’s used a lot, so it left me a little disappointed. I was also disappointed by the way social issues were present in this book. Not only did they lack any real depth, but it felt more like a scavenger hunt for the reader; instead of feeling authentic, it felt like a checklist, and I found it to be jarring instead of meshing with the story.
Like I said earlier, FRIENDS LIKE THESEwas a fairly quick read and interesting enough, so I would recommend it. And in researching the audio, it has a full cast, which I think is going to lend itself perfectly to this story!
In this refreshingly original, relentlessly twisty literary thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight, a desperate intervention brings together a group of college friends 10 years after graduation—a reunion marked by lies, betrayal, and murder.
On a Friday evening in September, five college friends arrive at an idyllic manor house in the Catskill Mountains for a bachelor party. At least, that’s the cover story. Jonathan is marrying Peter, that part is true. But this is not a celebratory reunion; it’s a staged intervention for Keith, a successful art dealer caught in a harrowing downward spiral of opioid addiction. His friends —Jonathan, Stephanie, Maeve and Derrick—have 48 hours to convince him to check into rehab or he will lose his business and much more. Still haunted by the mysterious death of another friend, Alice, during their senior year in college, the group refuses to stand by as Keith destroys himself; deep down, they hope that saving him might make up for having failed Alice. The friends blame themselves for her death. And, the truth is, maybe they should.
But Keith has unexpectedly brought along his most famous client, Finch, a charismatic trickster who senses the group’s fault lines and buried secrets and wastes no time exploiting them. By early Sunday morning, it’s all over—one friend is dead, another missing. The rest are paralyzed by fear. At least they seem to be. Astute and ambitious, Kaaterskill Detective Julia Sternbach is very good at her job, in spite of the demons from her past that the case has awakened. As Julia digs deeper, she begins to question if the real threat lies outside the mansion’s imposing walls, or within—and just how far these friends, forever bonded by love and loyalty, will go to protect one another, and hide the truth.
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