Saturday, June 24, 2023

Nice neighborhood: Not so Nice People

 


It’s an incredible find, a fixer-upper, but it’s in a beautiful neighborhood just minutes from downtown Washington DC. It’s a stretch for Alexis and Sam, but it’s the chance of a lifetime. It could be their forever home.


Sam and Alexis are young and successful. He’s about to make partner in a law firm. She’s a business consultant. They have one child and another on the way. It seems like a dream come true, and at first it is. They meet the next door neighbors, Teddy and Blair. Teddy seems like a really nice guy and Blair and Alexis hit it off. Then the unthinkable happens. Teddy is found dead on the neighborhood path and the police don’t think it’s an accident.


The novel is not fast paced. It takes place over several years and is told in alternating chapters by Alexis and Blair. The perspectives of the two women are well done and make the ending much more realistic. I can’t say that I liked the main characters. Alexis seemed to have her insecurities close to the surface. Maybe she doesn’t really belong in this wealthy neighborhood. She’s a scholarship kid, raised by a single mother, and her skin color is dark. I couldn’t like Sam at all. He was mean to Alexis when there was no reason to be so hurtful. They went into the house together, but when the repairs mount up, he blames her.


This is a well done plot, but if you’re interested in murder mysteries, this one is more of a character study.


Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for this book.



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