A Good Marriage

All rise: Book court is now in session, and, WOW, do I have a tremendously fun thriller to tell you about today! It starts off as an open-and-shut murder case but turns into a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. And it is AWESOME.

Present-day Park Slope: The body of Amanda Grayson has been found, and the main suspect, her millionaire husband Zach, has been arrested. Attorney Lizzie Kitsakis is surprised when she learns Zach, an old friend from law school, is a potential killer, and even more surprised when he insists she defend him. As Lizzie starts searching for evidence to prove Zach’s innocence, she, too, privately begins to suspect that he’s guilty. Did she agree to defend a murderer?

From almost the first page, McCreight cuts the brakes on the story and the book speeds along at a breakneck pace. Readers are treated not only to Lizzie’s story, but to the wife Amanda’s secret past, the moneyed lives of her friends, and the scandal that threatens to topple everything. Each of these threads are fascinating, and in the end, McCreight pulls them all together at the last minute in a truly explosive conclusion. VERDICT: Run, don’t walk, to this book. *Bangs gavel*

Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call. Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted. And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.

No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone. And Zach’s the primary suspect.

As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Grace Hall private school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own. In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place.