Anatomy of an Alibi

Camille is from a wealthy family and married to prominent Baton Rouge defense lawyer Ben Bayliss. Her vision for the future doesn’t align with her husband’s and she secretly wants out, but she needs to trigger a bad behavior clause in their pre-nup to justify the divorce. She has to dig up some dirt on him, which is hard to do when he digitally tracks her every move.

Aubrey Price works in a bar and lives with a ragtag group of individuals with various criminal talents. After losing her parents in a tragic car crash ten years ago, this is her de facto family. When Camille crosses paths with her and asks Aubrey to pretend to be her on a solo trip to another town so that she can stay behind and investigate Ben, Aubrey agrees. 

Everything goes to plan until Ben is found dead. Now one woman has the appearance of an airtight alibi and the other is in deep doo-doo. Will Aubrey end up on the wrong side of this plan?

It’s a great premise, fantastic writing, perfectly orchestrated plotting, well-developed characters, an intriguing Louisiana setting, and all those twists and turns that make thriller-lovers' hearts beat faster. To top it all off, this was an immersion read with my Kindle and the audio, and the narrators were all amazing, including one of my personal favorites, Saskia Maarleveld.

There’s literally no good reason I can come up with for me not to have loved this book and given it 5 stars like so many other friends, especially after Elston blew me away with her debut thriller First Lie Wins, yet here I am. I’m not sure what didn’t click as well for me this time, but it was an issue from the very beginning and never really let up.

I suspect this is just an issue of me not being a big fan of stories involving wealthy families who misuse their influence. I found it harder to connect to the characters in this book, though I did like Aubrey and her housemates - especially Deacon - and also Ben’s law partner Hank. While I enjoyed the story well enough and commend the skill with which Elston writes a thriller, I just didn’t LOVE it the way I wanted to. Perhaps the winter storm outside my windows is making me gloomy!

Having said all of that, it’s with NO hesitation that I recommend this book to my fellow thriller-lovers. There’s a long line of them who loved this one as much or even more than her last one, so please read their reviews before deciding whether to try this.

★★★ ½  

Thanks to Pamela Dorman Books, NetGalley and author Ashley Elston for this digital ARC to honestly review, and to my library/Libby for the audio. This is out now.