by Adam Ross
First published 2010
David Pepin met Alice in a college seminar on Alfred Hitchcock and fell instantly in love. Thirteen years later, he still adores his wife and cannot picture happiness without her. Yet David finds himself consumed by thoughts of Alice's death. When Alice dies under suspicious circumstances, David becomes the prime suspect while grieving her loss. Two detectives take the case. Ward Hastroll faces his own marital crisis when his wife suddenly takes to bed and refuses to get up. Sam Sheppard brings unique perspective to the investigation, having been wrongly convicted and later cleared of murdering his own wife decades earlier. The detectives discover David's connection to an unusual assassin known as Mobius. As they dig deeper, the boundaries between love and hatred blur. David designs computer games based on Escher drawings, and the investigation itself becomes a puzzle of interlocking mysteries. The case forces everyone involved to confront difficult questions about marriage, murder, and whether anyone can truly know another person completely.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, detective, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
335 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: death, murder