Good as Dead by Susan Walter

Good as Dead

by Susan Walter

It all starts with a promise from a stranger: We’ll take care of everything.

Holly Kendrick’s husband is dead. Holly saw it all. In one violent moment, a hit-and-run accident turns Holly’s life upside down. Then a fixer for the high-powered guilty party approaches Holly with an offer she is in no position to refuse. Holly and her daughter, Savannah, will want for nothing, beginning with a luxury dream house—all for the price of their silence. But when their sudden appearance in privileged Calabasas, California, piques the curiosity of neighbors, the price becomes greater than they imagined. Because Holly and Savannah aren’t the only ones in the neighborhood with something to hide.

Told from alternating points of view, Good as Dead draws together an unlikely group of people bound to one another by a crime, a cover-up, and compounding deceptions. As carefully constructed lives begin to crumble, how far will everyone be willing to go to bury the truth and protect the people they love?

Reviewed by Jeff Sexton on

5 of 5 stars

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Solid Mystery, Could Have Used Better Time Notations. This is one that is intriguing, yet also a bit slow up front - and sometimes hard to keep track of who/ when we are in any given section. There are four main perspectives - the survivor of a horrific car crash, her daughter, a lawyer, and a new neighbor of the survivor and her daughter - with several others also thrown in at different times - the lawyer's client and the neighbor's wife being the main two of these. All interweave at various points all the way through the ending, and indeed the epilogue is almost Fallout style in giving updates on what happens from each character's perspective. The only real issue I had with the book was specifically the editing, and specifically that it could have used a "Present" header the same way it often used a "3 months ago" header when shifting perspectives. Usually the chapter after the "3 months ago" chapter is from the same character perspective, but now we're back in the present... except this is only really noted via context clues. Still, truly an excellent book that is much more that it appears at first, with a bit of a thriller at the back of the book in an epic conclusion. Very much recommended.

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  • Started reading
  • 22 August, 2021: Finished reading
  • 22 August, 2021: Reviewed