The new thriller by judge, novelist, and eight-time James Patterson collaborator Ellis (“Jason Kolarich” series) opens on Halloween. The trick-or-treating has ended two hours before, and here Simon is, standing in the foyer of a house in upscale Grace Village, looking at the hanging dead body of Lauren, his long-ago love. She’s dressed in costume, a cat from head to toes. A quick sweep to make sure he’s left no clues, and Simon, dressed as the Grim Reaper, slips away. Who will notice him on a night when everybody is costumed? Thus begins this tricky tale of greed and revenge in which a cast of unappealing characters all try to take advantage of one another. What happened? Who did it? And even more pressingly, why? The answers change every so many pages in a tangled story that stretches back two decades.
VERDICT The characters are papier-mâché-thin, and the story (narrated by four characters and in passages from Simon’s secret journal, jumping backward and forward in time) is hard to believe, but Ellis’s thriller will appeal to fans of bad-guy novels set among the hyper-rich.
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