Maybe you don’t know your neighbours as well as you thought you did . . .

In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses—and into the owners’ computers as well—learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too.

Who is he, and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate, and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they’re telling?

I loved the The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell and a few others talking about gossiping neighbours. This is no Wisteria Lane but it’s close by to see all the Desperate Housewives chatting over what could be the biggest thing they’ll ever experience.

What we have here are at least two diverging plotlines. I know what I said, not converging – diverging. You have on one hand a murder investigation caused by the surfacing of a battered woman found in the trunk of her car and having a few prime suspects due to her flirtatious nature and her married status.

On the other hand, we have a mother mortified that her son has been breaking and entering neigbourhood houses for fun and trying to hack into people’s PC and reading their private stuff.

The mother, Olivia, is making an ethical but legally stupid move to confess to her son’s behaviour to the two houses he showed her (out of many more) and beg for forgiveness while still maintaining anonymity status. What comes next is pretty easy to see – one of the houses her son has defiled was the murder house and the other one belonged to Carmen – a woman of Mexican origins who just moved in and who, rightfully so, feels violated.

The suburban drama and most of the plot comes from the gossip mill. Who slept with who and which one of the women, faced with a perjury charge, cannot admit of sleeping around. It’s not as good as Beautiful Malice: A Novel By Rebecca James or Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood. It’s decent mystery with a few twists and a lot of unlikeable characters.

What I liked

The characters are well rounded and seem like real people. The ethical dilemma of sending your kid to jail so that he can learn consequences versus protecting your kid from a failed future is real. The murder suspect husbands were all disgusting with very few or no redeeming qualities.

What I didn’t like

This book is written by a woman for women and the men in it are either commiting crimes or not responsible for their own actions so that their wife or mother has to do damage control when they fuck up. There’s a bit of a pity party going on where we’re invited to watch:

Sometimes she wishes she could make her husband understand all the things she does, all the things she’s done for their family. He doesn’t appreciate her enough. He never will. He’s oblivious

There are a few repeated sentences which annoyed me like:

How, she fumes, are you supposed to teach a kid right and wrong when so many people in positions of authority regularly behave so badly? What the hell is wrong with America these days?

and the over-analysis of the killer husband who is so attractive everyone wants to sleep with him and make sure they’re not accused or guilty.

And what in the world possessed these women to jump to conclusions so quickly about anything? They must have been really bored. The setting is mainly confined to one street in a small suburb in upstate New York, a place the reader would never want to live.