Every Last Fear
Apparently my New Year’s tradition every year should be to read an amazing psychological thriller, because 2020 began with The Silent Patient, and 2021 has begun with this brilliant gem. Alex Finlay delivered an outstanding debut with this story of a family torn apart by past and present tragedy. You know it’s going to be intense when the book starts with the deaths of most of the members of the family that the book is about.
The Pine family: dad Evan, mom Olivia (Liv), daughter Maggie, and sons Matt and Tommy, are living in the shadow of eldest brother Danny’s conviction and imprisonment for the murder of his girlfriend Charlotte years before. While the rest of the family participated in a documentary called A Violent Nature (clearly inspired by Netflix’ true-crime doc Making a Murderer) to examine weak points in Danny’s case in hopes of exoneration, NYU student Matt wants nothing to do with it. When the rest of his family is killed on a vacation to Tulum, Mexico that he wasn’t a part of, Matt is left to put together the pieces of their suspicious deaths, as well as Danny’s past, with the help of FBI agent Sarah Keller.
The story of Evan, Liv, Maggie and Tommy is told retroactively, spotlighting the family dynamic and some of the complicated individual histories of Evan, Olivia and Maggie in the past and in the days immediately preceding their doomed trip. Interspersed is Matt’s story, both past and present, as well as agent Keller’s story. When Matt finds himself in potential danger from mysterious sources, he and agent Keller have to put together the puzzle pieces of Danny’s past and his family’s deaths to figure out their connections.
What makes this story great? It’s smart, well-told, with taut suspense, mystery and a nice variety of flawed, but likable characters. Did I want to throttle the dad, Evan, more than a few times and tell him to stop obsessing about his eldest son and pay quality attention to the rest of his family? Absolutely. He’s a man on a mission for his son, and it’s not until the end where I started to feel more sympathetic towards him. Speaking of the end, if I had to pick a flaw, I would say that during the final “baddie” reveal, it was as I predicted and I thought the story veered a bit into standard movie territory, where the person spills the whole story of why they did what they did, which made it feel just a teensy bit over-the-top. I still loved it and highly recommend it. I can’t wait to see what Alex Finlay gives us next!
★★★★ ½ (rounded to 5) ❤️
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