First published 2019
Twenty years ago, four teenagers in an upscale Philadelphia suburb shared a summer of secrets and boundary testing. When a new boy wanted to join their group, they devised what they thought was a harmless initiation prank involving Russian roulette with an unloaded gun. Something went terribly wrong that night, and the friends scattered, each carrying guilt and unanswered questions about who actually loaded the weapon. Now three of the original four meet again for the first time since that fatal summer. Their reunion comes after one of their group dies by apparent suicide, also involving a gun. The death forces them to confront whether this new tragedy connects to their shared past. One of them begins investigating if the suicide is really what it appears to be. Old secrets resurface as they grapple with the possibility that someone among them knows the full truth about both deaths. The friends must decide how far they will go to protect themselves and whether their bond of silence can survive the weight of two decades of buried guilt.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Philadelphia
Period: Twenty Years Ago
400 pages · Hardcover · G.P. Putnam's Sons
Content warnings: suicide