THE STEPFAMILY

A tech-startup VP suspects that someone is trying to kill her in Traymore’s thriller.

Things are looking up for Laura Foster. After seven years of marriage to Peter, who, she’s sure, loves her, and being stepmother to his two children—who, initially, didn’t like her—the 39-year-old has just been given a big career opportunity. She’s the new vice president of monetization at a company about to launch an app aimed at prospective college students. But things start to go downhill rapidly when she discovers brake fluid leaking from her car. Would jealousy drive someone to kill over a promotion? Her fevered imagination goes into overdrive when she suspects that something is bothering Peter. Does it have to do with his job at a biotech company that is anxiously awaiting U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a new cancer drug? Is the seeming attempt on Laura’s life conjuring up memories of his late wife, who died in a fatal hiking accident? A friend of hers suggests that something sinister is afoot with Peter. However, when Peter seeks out a private investigator to look into the incident, he denies it. “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Peter insists, “but we’re happily married. There’s no story there….” “Okay, then. Nothing in your present,” the PI says. “What about your past?” That’s when things really start to get interesting. Traymore, most recently the author of Little Loose Ends (2022), provides readers a sympathetic hero in Laura, who tends to bury her feelings; with the kids grown and out of the house, she’d dearly love to move from the house that Peter shared with his ex-wife. The chapters alternate between her first-person perspective and third-person narration of Peter’s side of things. Dueling perspectives, à la Gillian Flynn’s bestselling Gone Girl (2012), might have ratcheted up the suspense a bit more, but that would have required an immediate explanation of an anonymous email sent to Peter: “I know what you did. I won’t tell anyone.” However, Traymore deftly handles revelations and twists throughout.

A deliberately paced mystery that always stays one step ahead of its readers.