Reputation

Starred review from September 30, 2019
The murder of cardiac surgeon Greg Strasser in the home he shared with his fund-raiser wife, Kit Manning-Strasser, and his two stepdaughters propels this exceptional suspense novel from Shepard (The Elizas). Days earlier, a massive hack of the email system of Pittsburgh’s Aldrich University revealed explicit correspondence from the victim’s secret affair. Sharing the narration are a number of women whom Greg’s death touches, including Kit; Kit’s jealous, opportunistic coworker, Lynn Godfrey; Greg’s colleague, nurse, and new mother Laura Apatrea; and Kit’s distant sister, investigative reporter Willa Manning, who confronts her own history while helping to exonerate Kit. By giving each woman more than sufficient motivation to have killed Greg (Lynn and Laura also have reason to suspect their spouses) and making them sympathetic, the author ensures that the reader is pulled between revulsion and the urge to accept each one’s self-justifications for her behavior. In this viscerally satisfying thriller, Shepard forces readers to contemplate the inescapable aftereffects of impulsive poor choices. Agent: Andy McNicol, WME.