River Road by Carol Goodman

River Road

by Carol Goodman

From the award-winning author of The Lake of Dead Languages comes a chilling new psychological thriller about a professor accused of killing her favorite student in a hit-and-run accident.

Nan Lewis--a creative writing professor at a state university in upstate New York--is driving home from a faculty holiday party after finding out she's been denied tenure. On her way, she hits a deer, but when she gets out of her car to look for it, the deer is nowhere to be found. Eager to get home and out of the oncoming snowstorm, Nan is forced to leave her car at the bottom of her snowy driveway to wait out the longest night of the year--and the lowest point of her life...

The next morning, Nan is woken up by a police officer at her door with terrible news--one of her students, Leia Dawson, was killed in a hit-and-run on River Road the night before. And because of the damage to her car, Nan is a suspect. In the days following the accident, Nan finds herself shunned by the same community that rallied around her when her own daughter was killed in an eerily similar accident six years prior. When Nan begins finding disturbing tokens that recall the death of Nan's own daughter, Nan suspects that the two accidents are connected.

As she begins to dig further, she discovers that everyone around her, including Leia, is hiding secrets. But can she uncover them, clear her name, and figure out who really killed Leia before her reputation is destroyed for good?

Reviewed by empressbrooke on

2 of 5 stars

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Carol Goodman is one of my favorite mystery writers, but this one just did NOT do it for me. I admitted to my best friend midway through the book that part of the problem is probably me - I've never enjoyed books where the main character is an addict. I find it hard to root for them and spend most of my time loathing them instead of finding anything about them compelling. I was thinking this was a 3-star rating up until the end when a completely unforeshadowed, "Surprise, I'm actually a total psychopath and no one ever knew," solution to the mystery was presented. It was entirely too clumsy for someone as experienced and skilled as Goodman. There are also endless descriptions of driving on snowy roads and walking through snowy woods that got old fast.

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  • Started reading
  • 22 January, 2016: Finished reading
  • 22 January, 2016: Reviewed