If You Were Here by Alafair Burke

Synopsis

“Manhattan journalist McKenna Jordan is chasing the story of an unidentified woman who heroically pulled a teenaged boy from the subway tracks. When she locates a video that captures part of the incident, she thinks she has an edge on the competition scrambling to identify the mystery heroine, but is shocked to discover that the woman in the video bears a strong resemblance to Susan Hauptmann, a close friend who disappeared without a trace a decade earlier. What would have been a short-lived metro story sends McKenna on a dangerous search for the missing woman–a search that will force her to unearth long-buried truths much closer to home…”

-Synopsis from Goodreads

Review

Short take: Yet another amazing Alafair Burke book! I was blown away by this story, there were so many WTF moments where I actually had to put the book down to digest what I had just read, as well as many, many cliffhangers. The suspense was real, folks! Highly recommend.

Okay so you can tell from my short take that I really enjoyed this book. It’s been almost a year since I first discovered Alafair Burke after winning The Better Sister in a Goodreads giveaway. I was already slowly getting into Mary Higgins Clark so it’s possible I would have stumbled into her work regardless after reading a few of the books in the series they write together, but Goodreads definitely sped up that process. Thanks Goodreads!

Now Burke is the author I turn to for smart, female-drive crime/legal thrillers that never disappoint. As I have come to expect, the plots in her books are very intricate and detailed which means they are not exactly casual before-bed-reads, at least not for me. I find myself having to pay close attention to the narrative so I can keep up with the story, but I like that I’m always learning something new with each book. One of the things I love is that there is always some tie-in with the internet or Twitter or online culture that adds relevancy to the story. With this particular book, I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot, because I really was focused on going in not knowing anything about the story. I think this made it a much more enjoyable read than if I had already known some of the details ahead of time.