Review: Paris Peralta, a successful businesswoman married to decades-older actor/comedian Jimmy Peralta - currently enjoying a major comeback that has him back in the spotlight - isn't having her best day when found in her husband's bathroom, covered in blood and holding a straight razor, with Jimmy just a few feet away in a bathtub full of blood and water, dead. Immediately taken into custody as the potential killer, Paris's arrest is the stuff of front-page headlines, not just in Seattle but around the world. Jimmy was beloved, which of course now makes Paris hated - seen as a gold digger just after her dead husband's money - but oddly enough, what's really eating away at Paris is that the international attention she's now got might reveal an even deeper, darker secret from her past, tied to her roots in Canada and a woman named Ruby Reyes. Reyes herself is a convicted murderer, having stabbed a man to death twenty-five years prior. And now Ruby is up for parole ... and sending Paris letters, demanding money to keep the younger woman's secret. A lot of money.
Jennifer Hillier's latest, flipping back and forth in time and place, traces the story of these two women and the history of violence that connects them. It's a mystery-thriller that, for me, is a mystery first - the pacing, at times, coming off a bit slow for a thriller - and while the twists were not all that hard to figure out well in advance, as a mystery it does keep you guessing: who - or what - is Paris? Who set the basement fire that burned a young woman to death? What really happened the night Ruby Reyes was supposed to have gone whacko with a knife? It's my first Hillier novel, a mystery marketed as a thriller and to me a 4.5-star mystery wrapped up in a 3.5-star thriller, so am going to split the difference. Either way, definitely worth your time! 4/5 stars
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