After Nightfall
A. J. Banner
Lake Union
Marissa Parlette and her fiance Nathan Black throw a dinner party to celebrate his fortieth birthday and their engagement, but it becomes an exercise in awkwardness. Strange undercurrents are at work between their guests. Marissa fumes when her voluptuous old friend Lauren flirts with Nathan. Lauren’s husband, Jensen, Marissa’s former college boyfriend, looks pained. Nathan’s polished brother Keith and his wife Hedra arrive late – and is that a bruise on Hedra’s wrist? Even Nathan’s young daughter Anna senses all isn’t right.
After the party, Marissa stays over, but Nathan gets up in the night and furtively departs the house. It sets Marissa’s nerves twitching. Seeking to clear her head of wine fumes and suspicion she goes for an early morning walk along the shore only to discover Lauren’s body lying at the foot of the cliff.
. . . an elegant and taut psychological thriller . . .
The police treat Lauren’s death as suspicious. Marissa begins to wonder if one of the guests killed her, or could it be someone close to them? As she investigates, she uncovers a disturbing pattern of jealousy and obsession among those she knows and loves, a pattern that she thinks leads to the killer. Or does it? The key to Lauren’s death seems to lie somewhere in their combined pasts and what Anna really saw that night. Can Marissa find the truth before Lauren’s killer escapes justice?
In After Nightfall, A J Banner has created an elegant and taut psychological thriller that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat until the final page.
