- Received an email letting me know about this title and took the bait – it looked good!
I also recommend:
- The Likeness by Tana French
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Summary from GoodReads:
Sixteen-year-old Julia Whitmire appeared to have everything: a famous father, a luxurious Manhattan townhouse, a coveted spot at the elite Casden prep school. When she is found dead in her bathtub, a handwritten suicide note left on her bed, her parents insists that their daughter would never take her own life.
But Julia’s enviable life was more complicated than it seemed. The pressure to excel at Casden was enormous. Abuse of prescription anti-depressants and drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity ran rampant among students; an unlabeled bottle of pills in Julia’s purse suggests she had succumbed to the trend. And a search of Julia’s computer reveals that in the days leading up to her death, she was engaged in a dangerous game of cyberbullying against an unlikely victim.
NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is convinced the case is a suicide, but she knows from personal experience that a loving family can be the last to accept the truth. When the Whitmires use their power to force a criminal investigation, Ellie’s resistance causes trouble for her both at work and in her personal life.
As she is pressured to pursue a case she doesn’t believe in, she is pulled into Julia’s inner circle—an eclectic mix of overly precocious teenagers from Manhattan’s most privileged families as well as street kids she met in Greenwich Village. But when the target of Julia’s harassment continues to receive death threats, Ellie is forced to acknowledge that Julia may have learned the hard way that some secrets should never be told.
My Review:
Never Tell was my first experience with the writing of Alafair Burke. I decided to pick up this book on a whim, because lately I’ve been craving a bit of good crime fiction – mostly because it’s what I used to read voraciously back in the day and I rarely get to it (although Tana French is fantastic and will always be high on my list).
I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw in this book. Gone is the super-sexy, put-together crime detective that I’d come to expect with these types of books (think Kate Beckett on Castle) – and instead I was given Ellie – a detective with more than just flaws in her background. She makes mistakes, and she has to live with those mistakes and that’s what pushed this book above the churned out crime books that I’ve experienced in the past.
Never Tell is the story of a 16 year old suicide – but was it suicide? Wealth, power, technology, deceit, lies – everything factors into this story, which is, by the way, sectioned into nice headings which let you know which person Ellie is currently after.
I thoroughly enjoyed the ride this book took me on. Honestly, I had no idea “who done it,” and didn’t really care until the end because I was just sitting back and getting a thrill from the ride.
My one complaint is that this book is labeled as a suspense novel and never once did I get that feeling of suspense. There were no real moments when I was thinking of biting my nails, and when I think suspense books – that’s what I think about doing because sadly, I am a nail-biter. Other than that though, I recommend Never Tell – especially if you are a fan of crime fiction … but who am I kidding? I bet you already know about Alafair Burke!
Don’t just take my word for it! Check out what these bloggers say!
Wendi’s Book Reviews | Genre Go Round Reviews | Book Reviews & More by Kathy
