Look Closer

Simon and Vicky Dobias live in Chicago and seem to have everything. He is a respected law professor. She speaks up for survivors of domestic violence. Money is not a worry for either of them.

Then a beautiful socialite, Lauren Betancourt, is found hanged in a mansion nearby. The discovery starts to pull apart the secrets the couple have kept from the city and from each other. Those secrets include a fast, heated affair, a trust fund of twenty million dollars that is about to come due, and an old grudge fed by obsession and a wish for revenge.

This is a psychological thriller built around a murder and a pair of narrators who cannot be taken at their word. The story moves between different points in time, and the shifting viewpoints keep the reader guessing about who is telling the truth. In spirit it sits somewhere between Gone Girl and Strangers on a Train.

The question is larger than who killed Lauren. Every person at the center of the story is lying about something, and the reader has to work out which of them is running a con on the others. Expect a twisty, puzzle-like read in which nothing a character says can be trusted at face value.