The Neighbor, a novel by Lisa Gardner--a review

Beware! Spoilers! Duh...

Lisa Gardner's new book, The Neighbor, is an interesting, fast-paced suspense thriller that had even me scratching my head until the end when it neatly all came together. The slow unfolding of the story, the quiet reveal of the characters, the witty pace between points of view--which I love--and the "woah!" moments at the end were brilliantly pieced together by a master story-teller who never flinches from the grit. It was unpredictable and compelling, a refreshing change in the summer reading I've had as of late.

We're given insight, almost like a diary, from the point of view of the victim. The voice of this character was strong and had me wanting to read more. The person of interest in her disappearance is her husband, someone who is doing everything but cooperating with authorities to help find her. His motivation is only because he wants to protect his daughter. From what, we don't know, but only makes me want more to find out. Ree, the four-year-old daughter in question is cute, adorable, and precocious--an important piece to the puzzle as the story begins to unfurl with delicious suspense. But even more compelling is the husband. Who he is, not who people think he is, is the most important piece of the puzzle--and nothing is what it seems to be in the book.

I'm surprised with the lack of backstory that's necessary for a reader picking up this book without ever having read a Lisa Gardner book to understand who the husband is. You MUST read Say Goodbye before you read this book to have a greater appreciation of the characters and their internal monologues.

It also brings to question time line. At the end of Say Goodbye, the husband in The Neighbor is only 12 or 14 years-old. It seems to have been written in present time, but in The Neighbor, the reader must fast-forward 15-17 years for his current age. I don't know about you, but many things may change in that amount of time (technology, the real-life settings, etc), but it is written in "present-day". This makes it distracting a hard for me to suspend my disbelief.

Aside from that it bears the unsavory people, the realistic relationship dramas, the burden of family and defining happiness as it dissects human nature and post traumatic stress disorders that we see in every day goings on. The plot twists are unpredictable and the strong characters have you empathizing with even the most horrible of offenders.