REVIEW:

Lisa Lutz is one talented and versatile writer. First you’ve got her signature Spellman Files series, which is full of wink-and-a-nudge humor. Then you’ve got a thriller like her 2016 novel The Passenger, which is a total ride on a can’t-look-away crazytrainwreck.

But now she gives us something a little more pedestrian, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. The Accomplice is just a pretty straightforward suspense story that could have been written by any number of other authors cluttering up the genre. There are murders. There are lies. There are reveals.

The Accomplice focuses on the platonic friendship of Luna and Owen, which is honestly pretty refreshing. This ain’t no friends-to-lovers romance, no sir! Chapters flash back and forth between their days in college, when one of Owen’s paramours ends up dead, and now, when Owen’s current wife meets the same fate. Coincidence? Curse? Collusion?

Readers are essentially treated to two mysteries in one then. It’s a Murder BOGO!

While I felt the story started to lose a little steam and burn a bit too slowly, The Accomplice is still thriller I can easily recommend. I didn’t guess the outcome of either of the two mysteries, which is a huge plus. Then there’s the whole uniqueness of the male/female friendship aspect. And despite my belief that the writing is pretty standard, it does feature a novel characteristic - that of a truly omniscient narrator. Written in the third person, the perspective shifts almost constantly. In the course of one paragraph, you’ll know what all the characters are thinking. Kinda cool! If even just for these reasons, The Accomplice is an accomplished book that has me looking forward to whatever Lutz will do next.

My thanks to the author and Ballantine Books for the gifted advance copy to review via NetGalley. The expected US publication date is January 25, 2022.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

Everyone has the same questions about best friends Owen and Luna: What binds them together so tightly? Why weren't they ever a couple? And why do people around them keep turning up dead? In this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Passenger, every answer raises a new, more chilling question.

Owen Mann is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna Grey is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they begin forming a bond the moment they meet in college. Their names soon become indivisible - Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen - and stay that way even after an unexplained death rocks their social circle.

Years later, they're still best friends when Luna finds Owen's wife brutally murdered. The police investigation sheds some light on long-hidden secrets, but it can't penetrate the wall of mystery that surrounds Owen. To get to the heart of what happened and why, Luna has to dig up the one secret she's spent her whole life burying.

The Accomplice examines the bonds of shared history, what it costs to break them, and what happens when you start wondering if you ever truly knew the only person who truly knows you.