Mystery

Their Last Secret by Rick Mofina is the story of three disadvantaged teenaged girls from the small town of Eternity, Manitoba, whose unhealthy friendship leads them to commit a horrible and heinous crime. Twenty years later, the girls have served their time and have scattered, with new identities, to separate destinations. Emma Grant has turned up in California and has turned her life around. She is happily married to a true-crime author, is the stepmother of a teenage girl, and is working as a high school counsellor. Life is good until an anonymous note appears on her car’s windshield. Then her husband takes on a new book assignment and unknowingly begins to investigate the Manitoba crime committed twenty years ago. Living in fear of her past being found out, Emma’s charmed life is about to implode and she is helpless to prevent it. As usual, a Rick Mofina thriller does not disappoint. The pace is relentless and the characters fascinating. The story feels like it was pulled from the headlines and what if it was? Highly recommend. Thank you to Harlequin and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Their Last Secret by Rick Mofina is a highly recommended thriller.

Twenty years ago Janie, Nikki, and Marie were fourteen-year-old girls living in Eternity Manitoba when they made a blood pact to be "Skull Sisters." The girls were all from struggling families and felt disenfranchised. After a stunt the girls pulled, Janie ended up regularly babysat for one of the wealthiest family in town, Royston (Roy) and Connie Tullock. Janie liked the children, but the Tullocks always shorted her pay and soon she was short a hundred dollars with no hope of actually getting fully paid for her time. Nikki came up with a plan to rob them when they were out of town. This plan resulted in a horrifying crime.

Twenty years later Emma Grant is a school counselor living in California. She is keeping her past buried and a secret from her true-crime author husband, Ben, and her teenage step daughter Kayla. Kayla, however doesn't trust her new stepmother and thinks she is hiding something so she begins asking questions and snooping around. While Kayla is questioning her, Emma knows that trouble is already coming to her doorstep when finds a note stuck on her car windshield at work that says "Soon it will be 20 years. Your day of reckoning is coming." Emma realizes she is being followed and that combines with everything else to threaten to have her secret exposed.

This is a well-written thriller that features a build-up of tension and suspense as the plot elements in the narrative are revealed. The characters introduced are perhaps not as fully developed as I would normally like, but it is all in the name of preserving the tension and keep you questioning what exactly is going on. Mofina holds back enough information to keep you guessing as the anxiety and apprehension grows. You don't have all the information on any one element or character, but you have just enough to keep you riveted to the novel and try to figure out what is going on and how the action is going to unfold. It is a compelling novel right up to the end, which is a little over the top, but still provides an end to the narrative. 4.5

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of MIRA/Harlequin.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/07/their-last-secret.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3468429302 ( )